Good on ya, Britain

This is the only sensible and moral response to this invitation:

What kind of “peace conference” takes place without the antagonists involved? The kind interested in delivering lectures rather than solutions, the British decided, and washed their hands of it today. Attending as an observer to the Paris forum, the United Kingdom refused to sign its final declaration, and instead rebuked the participants for attempting to not just bypass Israel and the Palestinians, but also the incoming Trump administration in the US:

Dramatically breaking ranks with participants from 70 other countries, the United Kingdom criticized Sunday’s Middle East peace conference in Paris, arguing that it might harden Palestinian negotiating positions and refusing to sign a joint statement issued after the summit that called for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A Foreign Office spokesman said London had “particular reservations” about the Paris meeting taking place without Israeli or Palestinian representatives, especially since a new US administration is being sworn in later this week.

Indeed, the spokesman’s statement noted that the confab took place against Israel’s expressed wishes and “just days before the transition to a new American president when the US will be the ultimate guarantor of any agreement.”

“There are risks therefore that this conference hardens positions at a time when we need to be encouraging the conditions for peace.”

We all know what the point of the conference and the declaration is: to give the West's most prominent Israel-haters one last chance to grandstand and make the stage unnecessarily complicated for their successors.