In an embarrassing diplomatic setback, French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman postponed a United Nations conference they were scheduled to colead in New York on Tuesday. Their plan for the General Assembly conference was to push the quick creation of a Palestinian state, even though the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas runs Gaza and the Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank, bankrolls terror attacks on Israelis.

The real world — the imminent creation of an Iranian nuclear weapon — intervened. The conference was a power play by the French and the Saudis, along with their partners in the Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation, to shove aside the United States and seize control over the future of the Middle East. It was a Palestinian-first scheme directly at odds with President Donald Trump’s hopes to expand Arab-Israeli rapprochement and finally end the roadblock to peace erected by violent Palestinian rejectionists for 75 years.