UK cabinet minister facing removal over unauthorized Israeli meetings

British Prime Minister Theresa May has summoned her International Development Secretary Priti Patel back from a trip to Africa following a scandal over unauthorized meetings in Israel, prompting speculation she will be the second minister in a week to be fired.

Patel left London on Tuesday on a trip to Uganda, but a UK government source said she was returning to London Wednesday at May's request.

Patel was forced to apologies on Monday for taking a family holiday to Israel in August and holding 12 separate meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other politicians without May's knowledge.

She was publicly reprimanded by the prime minister but appeared to keep her job. However, it emerged late Tuesday there had been another two unauthorized meetings in September.

Patel’s trip was cut short when she revealed two more previously undisclosed meetings with Israeli politicians, amid reports that she also breached protocol by visiting Syria’s Golan Heights, which have been occupied by Israel since 1967.

Patel has been under pressure to quit her post after failing to come clean with May over 12 other meetings she had held with senior Israeli figures, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Wednesday, The Sun newspaper reported that she had also failed to disclose that she had met the director general of Israel’s foreign ministry, Yuval Rotem, in New York.

A UK government source confirmed those meetings took place.

The main opposition Labour Party has demanded an investigation into whether Patel's behavior breached the ministerial code.

If sacked, Patel would become the second minister to leave May's government in a week, after former Defense Secretary Michael Fallon quit on November 1 in a scandal over sexual harassment that has rocked parliament.

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Patel reportedly told May that she discussed the possibility of British aid being used to support an Israeli military field hospital in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which has purportedly facilitated the treatment of Syrian refugees.

Reports suggest however that she did not explain that this involved supplying funding to the Israeli military. Britain's official position is that funding the Israeli military in the Golan Heights is "not appropriate", because it views the Golan Heights as occupied territory.

On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators staged a rally outside the US embassy in London to demand the British government apologize for the controversial Balfour Declaration that led to the creation of Israel.

May marked the centenary of the Balfour Declaration along with Netanyahu during a banquet in London on Thursday.

The Balfour Declaration was a public announcement by the British government during World War I to support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" on Palestinian territories.

The declaration was named after British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, who penned the document.

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