Michael Meadowcroft wonders if Priti Patel has been the fall guy for secret diplomacy, Nicholas Hall says the Patel debacle is a further insult to all Palestinians and Martin Lamb questions Patel’s choice of the word ‘fulsome’ in her apology. Plus letters from Angela Croft, KC Gordon, Anna Ford, Willy Montgomery Stack and Philip Heselton

There are huge inconsistencies in the Priti Patel and Israel affair (PM’s turmoil grows as Patel quits over Israeli meetings, 9 November). However much one disagrees with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies, he is certainly a consummate politician. Are we really to believe that he would meet casually with a British cabinet minister during her holiday, without being assured that she was Theresa May’s envoy?

If not, then the inevitable outcome that has now unfolded ran too great a risk of damaging his relationship with the UK government. And would Lord Polak have had such a visible role alongside Patel’s holiday politics if he thought that it ran the risk of upsetting the Conservative government. Thus far, despite his decades-long role as the fixer for the highly influential Conservative Friends of Israel, he has been a shadowy figure. Would he really have emerged into the spotlight for such an improbable escapade?

The only explanation that matches the facts is that Patel was the fall guy for some secret diplomacy that May wanted to keep under cover.

Michael Meadowcroft

Leeds

• Everything I’ve read or heard about Priti Patel’s resignation is saying it matters because it breaches the ministerial code, and the consequences are important in the domestic context (Brexit balance, etc). But we must try and imagine what it looks like in the Arab world, 100 years after Balfour. Take away the Westminster framing and we see blatant undermining of efforts to appear neutral in the unresolved conflict between Israel and Palestine. A cabinet minister was taking a holiday in Israel (bias enough, I would have thought), being led round by a known pro-Israel lobbyist, talking (and promising goodness knows what) to Israeli ministers and businesses, and meeting hardline prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And then off to the illegally occupied Golan Heights! We need to know what shifts in policy, what diversion of aid from Palestine, what recognition of illegal Israeli settlements and undermining of EU restrictions against import of goods from the settlements, she was trying to achieve.

To cap it all, our own prime minister, in accepting Patel’s resignation, said that the UK and Israel were “close allies and should work closely together”. Allies against Palestine? Working closely together for Netanyahu’s illegal settlement expansions? Apology needed to all Palestinians, for this debacle as well as for Balfour.

Nicholas Hall

York

• Can we have a re-evaluation of the word “fulsome”, as in the “fulsome apology” that Priti Patel’s resignation letter said she was offering to Theresa May and the government? My dictionary’s first options are related to “sickeningly” and “obsequious” and “nauseatingly affectionate”. Did she mean the opposite, perhaps, that her apology was “honest”?

Martin Lamb

Sheffield

• The fact that Priti Patel had 12 meetings with foreign politicians, including one with Benjamin Netanyahu, without informing the Foreign Office, let alone the prime minister, and that she seems to be running her own foreign policy, shows she has great chutzpah indeed.

As a humble civil servant back in the 1970s, I had to advise the head of my department if I was travelling on holiday to an eastern bloc country as the cold war was slowly beginning to thaw; and every week the head of information at No 10 would hold a meeting with information officers from across Whitehall to coordinate briefings and ensure everyone was aware of the main issues being announced that week. How times change.

Angela Croft

London

• I am left wondering how No 10 knew nothing of Priti Patel’s visit to Israel. Our embassy in Cairo would have known of her presence in the country and would have commented on it in its regular report to the Foreign Office. The officer on the Middle East desk would have sent that information upstairs to the foreign secretary… who is also a contender for the Tory party leadership. Just a thought.

KC Gordon

Llanllechid, Gwynedd

• I’m tired of watching the government implode in slow motion. Would someone kindly press fast-forward and just get it over with? It’s painful to watch and we’ve an awful lot to do.

Anna Ford

London

• I hope that Priti Patel now has the chance of a proper holiday. She clearly didn’t get much time to relax during her last one, poor soul.

Willie Montgomery Stack

Norwich

• The last woman to be recalled prematurely from Kenya became monarch.

Philip Heselton

Hull

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