Priti Patel, Britain’s international development secretary, apparently did some official business in Israel without telling the Foreign Office. The visit took place over two days in August while Patel was on a private holiday in Israel, which she paid for.

Normally such an issue would concern only the relevant parties: Britain and Israel. However, there is a third silent party involved: the Palestinians. Britain currently spends approximately $85 million a year on aid to the West Bank and Gaza, most of which comes from Patel’s own departmental budget. Some of the money is given directly to the Palestinian Authority, the rest through the local UN agency or individual groups. But Patel has long been known to oppose some of this spending on Palestine. The fear among some is that Patel used the trip to discuss reducing her department’s support for Palestinian groups.

Critics claim that instead of just supporting Palestinian refugees and institutions, the money has also been used to pay salaries to Palestinians jailed for what are described by Israel as terrorism-related offences. Patel has long been a critic of this funding. She tightened up the guidelines on Palestinian spending last year, focusing more on health and education, but she had reportedly recently presented a paper to the prime minister and the foreign secretary for yet more restrictions on the funding.

Matters are made worse by the fact that Patel was accompanied on part of her trip by Stuart Polak, a member of the House of Lords and one of the most powerful lobbyists in Westminster. For the last 25 years, until his recent retirement, Polak has been a director of the Conservative Friends of Israel, an organization described as the largest in Western Europe dedicated to the cause of the people of Israel. And in that role he had a huge influence on Conservative thinking on the Middle East. Patel, too, is a long-standing supporter of Israel and a former vice-chairman of CFI. She also happened to meet Yair Lapid, chairman of the Yesh Atid Party and a former Israeli finance minister. Surely these meetings, coming on a purported holiday, were not coincidental.

Imagine if the situation were reversed. Suppose a British cabinet minister had travelled to the West Bank on a private holiday, and then held a series of meetings with Palestinian businessmen and politicians. The Israeli government would have been outraged, followed by a certain apology from the British government.

In this case, the government of Theresa May has not in any way rebuked Patel for a holiday in Israel in which sandcastles were not being built, in which official business was discussed. The revelation that Patel has been in unauthorized communication with senior Israelis, without alerting the Foreign Office, is a serious government matter for a cabinet secretary. She could have broken the code of conduct, which states that ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests.

This episode comes on the heels of the dinner between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and May to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which committed Britain to establish a Jewish homeland on Palestinian land. One hundred years later and there are still wrongs committed by Britain toward the Palestinians.

May should have been even-handed. She should have met senior Palestinian politicians as well as Netanyahu. During the past week, there have been a number of events held by the Palestinians with the intention of telling their side of the Balfour story. May did not attend a single one, nor did any of her ministers.

Did Patel come under pressure to reduce British funding for Palestinian projects? May should want to know the answer.