There’s only one way to describe a person who knowingly attends a death-metal concert, then walks out in protest against the morbid lyrics and incoherent screaming: foolish.

Similarly, it doesn’t take much imagination to describe a government that attends a conference that it knows will be blatantly anti-Israel, then walks out in protest when it opens with a vehemently anti-Semitic rant by the world’s consummate Jew hater.

Self-deceived, naive … foolish.

Sponsored by the United Nations and managed by the likes of Iran, Cuba and Libya, the purpose of this week’s Durban Review Conference in Geneva is to affirm the findings of Durban i. Conducted in 2001 in its namesake South African city, Durban i was supposed to address the global issues of racism and human rights. It failed. Under the overbearing influence of repressive states, the conference spiraled into a frenzied and uncontrollable hate fest against the Jewish state.

Britain was fully aware of Durban ii’s farcical nature and history when it packed off a delegation to Geneva this week. Hence, it delineated “red lines” beforehand, which, if crossed, would result in its walking out of the conference.

On Monday, the British delegation had barely settled in when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad strolled to the lectern. You may be shocked by what he spoke about in the first session of the conference—on the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, no less. Ahmadinejad delivered an anti-Semitic rant in which he downplayed the Holocaust and Jewish suffering during World War ii, attacked Israel as the “most cruel and repressive racist regime” and reprimanded Europe and America for supporting the violent and repressive Jewish state.

Shocked and upset, Britain walked out.

The protest was widely applauded as a courageous display of moral and ideological fortitude. Reacting to Ahmadinejad’s tirade, Gordon Brown’s spokesman said the prime minister “unreservedly condemns his offensive and unacceptable remarks.” The remarks were “offensive, inflammatory and utterly unacceptable,” stated British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. “The UK delegation, along with many others, rightly walked out of President Ahmadinejad’s speech because such hate-filled rhetoric is an intolerable abuse of free speech and of the conference.”

Righteous-sounding rhetoric. But as the old adage goes: Actions speak louder than words.

Britain’s walk-out was little more than a sanctimonious, glancing, meaningless display of disapproval. Melanie Phillips made this point superbly on her blog at the Spectator on Tuesday (emphasis mine throughout):

Geneva provided a platform for Ahmadinejad—on the anniversary of Hitler’s birthday and the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day—to pose hideously as a champion of human rights while implicitly denying the Holocaust once again and defaming Israel—which he has repeatedly threatened to wipe out …. And what was the mass walk-out other than an utterly hypocritical act of gesture politics? After all, it’s not as if anyone can have been surprised at what Ahmadinejad said. Every single person who turned up to hear him had a pretty good idea of what he was going to say. His appearance did not reduce the Geneva conference to a farce: It simply exposed it for the farce that it already was and rubbed the participants’ noses in it.

Durban ii’s agenda was no secret. Everyone knew of the conference’s heinous reputation as little more than an anti-Semitic, pro-Islamic bull session. Long before it started, numerous leading Western states, including Germany, Poland, Italy, Australia, Canada, Israel and New Zealand, had decided against attending. Even the United States—under an administration whose commitment to Israel is significantly weaker than its predecessor’s was—decided at the last minute to pull out.

But not Britain.

The British delegation was applauded for mustering the courage to turn its backs on Ahmadinejad. Amid the clapping, though, how many noticed that following the mass exodus, with the exception of the Czech Republic, “everyone promptly went back into the conference after Ahmadinejad left”? (ibid.).

And there’s the rub. Fleeing a death-metal concert offended by the noise—after knowingly purchasing a ticket and attending—is foolish. But only a clinically insane person would return to the mayhem which, only minutes before, he found vehemently repulsive. Yet that’s essentially what Britain did.

As Phillips noted, “The fact is that even if Ahmadinejad had not turned up, the Geneva conference was always going to be a travesty of human rights. With Iran as its vice chair, Libya as the chair of the ‘Main Committee’ running the conference and Cuba acting as rapporteur, how could this ‘anti-racism’ meeting ever be anything other than [an obscene gesture of contempt] by some of the world’s leading tyrannies to the cause of freedom and true human rights?”

Britain’s participation in Durban ii is evidence of the gargantuan moral and ideological inversion occurring within British foreign policy. There was once a time when Britain would have locked arms with America, Israel and other leading Western states in boycotting Durban ii and its patently anti-Israel agenda. Those days are clearly drawing to a close. Britain openly joined rogue powers such as Iran, Cuba and Libya in a conference founded on the premise of persecuting the Jewish state, criticizing the Western world for its support of Israel and advancing Islam’s incursion into the Western world.

The upside-down state of British foreign policy is particularly interesting when considered in the context of Old Testament prophecy. In particular, the book of Hosea contains much prophecy about end-time events in Britain, which the Bible identifies as being comprised of the descendants of Ephraim, son of the patriarch Joseph. (You can easily prove the modern identity of Britain by studying The United States and Britain in Prophecy.)

Notice Hosea 7:11: “Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.“ In Old Testament times, both Egypt and Assyria posed significant strategic threats to Ephraim. Hosea was lamenting Ephraim’s proclivity to act like a foolish dove by flocking to its enemies. Regarding this verse, the Matthew Henry Commentary says that the dove is “easily enticed by the bait into the net, and has no heart, no understanding, to discern her danger, as many other fowls do.”

That’s a perfect description of Britain’s behavior at Durban ii. Lacking “understanding” and the ability to discern danger, it was “easily enticed” into attending a conference designed to undermine, delegitimize, and ultimately destroy the Jewish state. Ephraim, or Britain, has indeed adopted a “silly dove” foreign policy of abandoning its allies and embracing its enemies. This trend is saddled with terrifying consequences.

Silly doves do not survive in a world brimming with hawks and tigers!