Quotations from George Santayana:
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense, Scribner's, 1905, page 284"

And yet, people like Bin Ladin dwell endlessly on the past, on events so ancient that they involved people who are no longer living, or are elderly and infirm. They can't even form intelligent representations of historical events. They hear some twisted version of past events and become enraged. Are they not repeating history? How have they benefitted from history? I say instead: What good has knowledge of history done anybody? Wouldn't it be better to have knowledge of the future? To understand what can happen and what cannot happen requires knowledge of science, not history. History is open to interpretation, to the use of words and the exactness of their context. History is easily perverted. And its endless rehashing hasn't done anyone any good, especially the Palestinians.

And why should we tolerate a hostile nation driven by hate-filled ideology and sworn to destroy us for our so-called "transgressions", whether it is a democracy or not?