"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." - Paulo Freire, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire

Perhaps to truly be neutral yet engaged, one must go among the powerless, appear to be as they are, and demonstrate humbly the great powers that are all around them, immediately at hand, if they would themselves set down that conflict. Kindness is one such enormous power. Imagination is the power that trumps all others, and in collusion with kindness and compassion, it invents the world anew.

I would draw attention to the difference between "washing one's hands of the conflict," and not engaging in that conflict while acknowledging that yes, it does indeed exist.

Choosing not to engage in a conflict - to not mirror the aggressive or passive-aggressive or entitled or co-dependent habits of those who are engaging -- opens up enormous spaces for alternative actions and new patterns of behavior, that make the conflict not only evidently boring but evidently obsolete.