Why can't everybody just get along? No reasonably detached person goes to Israel without being reduced in philosophical discourse to the level of Rod… - P. J. O'Rourke

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Engraved portrait of P. J. O'Rourke, facing right

Why can't everybody just get along? No reasonably detached person goes to Israel without being reduced in philosophical discourse to the level of Rodney King—or, for that matter, to the level of George Santayana. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Santayana said, in one of those moments of fatuousness that come to even the most detached of philosophers. It goes double for those who can't remember anything else. And they do get along, after their fashion. Muslims and Christians and Jews have lived together in the Holy Land for centuries—hating one another's guts, cutting one another's throats, and touching off wars of various magnitudes. The whole melodrama of the Middle East would be improved if amnesia were as common here as it is in melodramatic plots.

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About P. J. O'Rourke

Patrick Jake O'Rourke (14 November 1947 – 14 February 2022) was an American political satirist, most often known as P. J. O'Rourke.

Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Cato Institute. (CC BY-SA)

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Patrick Jake O'Rourke Patrick O'Rourke

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