"Palestine should be run by Palestinians"... So why does Britain refuse to confront its legacy?

By: Alex Cole-Hamilton, Member of the Scottish Parliament and Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats

Over the past year, Britain has recognized the Palestinian state, imposed sanctions on extremist settlers and hardline ministers in the Netanyahu government, and committed £10 million to support essential services provided by the Palestinian Authority to citizens.

However, one sentence in Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper's recent statement caught my attention. Speaking about Palestinian governance, she simply said: "Palestine should be run by Palestinians." She is right, but the problem is that Britain spent three decades working to prevent that from happening. When Britain controlled Palestine between 1917 and 1948, the rights of Palestinians were not neglected by mistake, but deliberately pushed aside. Britain has never acknowledged that suffering, nor even the role played by its methods of control and coercion in entrenching many of the practices we see today.

This is the central question posed by the "Britain Owes Palestine" campaign to the government in a 400-page legal petition, prepared by a number of senior lawyers and historians.

The petition reviews a disturbing history largely absent from public awareness. In 1917, Britain, through the Balfour Declaration, committed to supporting the establishment of a national home for Jews in a land where over 90% of the population was Arab, without obtaining the consent of the landowners living there. In the decades that followed, Britain deprived the Palestinian majority of any real and effective democratic participation. When the formation of a legislative council with an Arab majority was proposed, the British Parliament voted to reject the proposal.

The United Kingdom's failure to create the necessary conditions for a two-state solution before the end of the Mandate established a long era of violence and conflict.

Today, if we are serious about finding a long-term solution where Arabs and Jews live side-by-side in peace, we must be clear and firm in supporting free and fair legislative and presidential elections in all occupied territories, elections that President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed would be held in November 2026 and early 2027. These elections represent an opportunity to regain control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas, and pave the way for achieving peace and security for both sides.

We must also empower moderate forces in Israeli and Palestinian societies, and withdraw influence from extremist currents, including through advancing multilateral plans to disarm Hamas, and ensuring the imposition and application of sanctions on Benjamin Netanyahu and the extremist ministers in his government.

Britain should also prohibit all forms of trade in goods and services with illegal settlements in the occupied territories, recognizing that these settlements represent one of the biggest obstacles to achieving a two-state solution. As long as Israeli settlers are able to seize and control more land, supported by the military force of the Israeli army, there will be no real peace in the region. This also makes the establishment of a stable Palestinian state more difficult, by depriving it of water resources and agricultural land.

But any viable solution also requires Britain to confront its historical failures.

When the Palestinian Arab Revolt broke out between 1936 and 1939, Britain responded with policies of collective punishment, military courts, and methods that the British Colonial Secretary secretly admitted to the Cabinet included "atrocities" committed by the police and deliberately concealed from Parliament. At least 5,000 Palestinians were killed and 15,000 others injured during that period.

When Britain withdrew from Palestine, about 750,000 Palestinians were displaced during the subsequent war, which the petition describes as foreseeable and avoidable, and linked to Britain's abandonment of its responsibilities. Subsequently, the British Parliament passed legislation that retroactively granted immunity to all British officials from legal prosecution for actions they committed during the Mandate period.

Britain bears responsibility for what it did, and also for the effects of those actions that are still present today. Look at Palestine today, and you will find that the use of military courts, collective punishment, and property demolition are practices that characterized the British Mandate period, and are still used by Israeli authorities. A state that today claims to defend the rights of Palestinians, while at the same time refusing to deal with a legal petition concerning the acts of oppression it itself practiced, is not applying its principles consistently. No party can be an honest broker in an issue it contributed to destroying without first acknowledging what it committed.

Last September, I stood in the Scottish Parliament chamber in Holyrood and said that recognizing the Palestinian state is a fundamental step towards peace, and that the Liberal Democrats have no doubt that the actions of the Israeli government and the Israeli army constitute a violation of international law, and that the British government must take additional steps by imposing a comprehensive ban on arms exports and specific sanctions on the Netanyahu government. The Scottish Parliament voted 65 to 24 in favor of that position. Scotland has expressed its position on the current crisis, but the accountability of the British Parliament must also include confronting the historical question.

While the Scottish Parliament cannot bind the British Parliament on issues within its jurisdiction, Scotland has always been willing to use its voice to speak on issues beyond its local powers. The cross-party consensus in the Scottish Parliament on recognizing the Palestinian state, restrictions on arms exports, and respect for international law reflects a broad trend in Scottish society. This consensus should now push for an additional step: demanding that Britain honestly confront its history, a history that contributed to creating the conditions we are trying to address today.

Despite nine months having passed since the petition was delivered to the British government, and a parliamentary group comprising 45 MPs and Lords from various parties having written to the Prime Minister demanding a response, no response has been issued yet. The main petitioner, Munib al-Masri, who was shot by British soldiers as a teenager, along with thirteen other Palestinians whose families were directly affected by the policies of the British Mandate period, are still awaiting an answer.

Britain should not only ask what it can do today to achieve more peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis, but it must also ask itself about its role in creating the current crisis.

Therefore, I call on members of the Scottish Parliament, from all parties, to join me in demanding that the British government finally respond to this petition. I also call on it to honestly confront its record during the Mandate period, and to realize that peace built on selective memory is not a sustainable peace.