Alex Cole-Hamilton’s recent article on LDV is right about one thing: Palestine should be run by Palestinians. Israelis, likewise, should determine their own future in peace and security. But that aspiration is not advanced by presenting a highly selective reading of history that assigns Britain primary responsibility for a century of conflict while overlooking the choices made by Palestinian leaders and the wider Arab world.

The central premise of his article is that Britain deliberately prevented Palestinian self-determination and that today’s conflict flows principally from decisions taken during the Mandate. That is a powerful political narrative. It is also an incomplete and misleading one.

The Balfour Declaration did not promise a Jewish national home in a political vacuum. It also committed Britain to safeguarding the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine. It reflected international recognition, later endorsed by the League of Nations, that the Jewish people had legitimate national aspirations in their historic homeland alongside the rights of the Arab population. The tragedy of the Mandate was not simply British policy. It was the failure of successive leaders on all sides to embrace compromise.

Alex Cole-Hamilton argues that Britain denied Palestinians democratic representation. Yet he overlooks the repeated rejection by Arab leaders of proposals that would have created Arab and Jewish states living side by side. The Peel Commission in 1937 and the UN Partition Plan in 1947 both offered opportunities for two states. Neither was accepted by the Arab leadership. Those decisions, no less than Britain’s actions, shaped the decades that followed.

His call for Palestine to be run by Palestinians also raises an important contemporary question. Mahmoud Abbas is now in the twenty-first year of what was intended to be a four-year presidential term. Palestinians have not elected a president since 2005 or a legislature since 2006. The absence of democratic accountability within the Palestinian Authority cannot simply be attributed to Britain or to Israel. Indeed, this underlines the importance of the Liberal Democrats’ long-standing support for free and fair Palestinian elections as an essential step towards establishing democratic legitimacy, strengthening accountable institutions, and creating the conditions for a lasting two-state peace.

Indeed, this point was made compellingly in these pages by the Palestinian political reformer Samer Sinijlawi following the recent Liberal Democrat delegation to Jerusalem and Ramallah. He argued that Palestinian politics is trapped between the militancy of Hamas and the stagnation and corruption associated with Mahmoud Abbas, and called instead for a liberal alternative founded on elections, transparency and institutional reform. His message was clear: Palestinians themselves must renew democratic legitimacy and build accountable institutions if statehood is to succeed. That liberal vision deserves far greater attention than another attempt to explain today’s failures primarily through Britain’s colonial past.

Nor should the Arab Revolt of 1936 to 1939 be remembered solely through the lens of British repression. Britain’s response undoubtedly included actions that deserve scrutiny and criticism. But the revolt itself also involved attacks on Jewish civilians and the murder of Arabs accused of cooperation or moderation. History is diminished when only one side’s suffering is acknowledged.

Similarly, describing the displacement of Palestinians in 1948 without recognising that it occurred in the context of a war following the rejection of partition presents only half the story. The conflict created two refugee populations: Palestinians and Jews driven from Arab countries. Both deserve recognition. Neither should be erased from the historical record.

The article also suggests that modern Israeli policy is the direct inheritance of British colonial rule. That overlooks the reality that Israel is a democratic state facing complex security challenges while also making decisions that deserve criticism where they undermine peace or breach international law. Settlement expansion should be opposed. So should violence and extremism wherever they arise. But criticism is not strengthened by reducing history to a single colonial explanation.

If we genuinely want two states living side by side in peace, we should support democratic renewal within Palestinian society, encourage responsible leadership on both sides, and return the focus to direct negotiations rather than competing historical indictments. Peace will depend on leaders who are prepared to compromise, not simply on revisiting Britain’s past.

Britain’s record during the Mandate was imperfect and, at times, deeply flawed. It should continue to be examined honestly. But making Britain the principal author of today’s conflict risks absolving contemporary leaders of responsibility for the choices they continue to make. The past matters. So does the present.

Peace will not come from assigning exclusive blame to one country for a century of history. It will come from recognising that both peoples have legitimate national aspirations, both have suffered profoundly, and both deserve governments that derive their authority from democratic consent rather than historical grievance.

* Gavin Stollar OBE is the Honorary Chair of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel. He is a former Parish and District Councillor, Parliamentary Candidate and parliamentary aide to Rt. Hon Charles Kennedy during his first two years as Party Leader.