Who the Board of Deputies is

The Board of Deputies of British Jews calls itself the voice of the Jewish community. Its constitution also commits it to Israel.

Its website says the same in plain words.

Whilst no filing shows money from the Israeli government, the Board's own annual report for 2021 records a working relationship with the Israeli state.

The channel stayed open through the genocide.

• On 17 October 2023 the Board published a video message from Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, telling British Jews: "I know you share our pride and trepidation as our sons and daughters take the fight to the enemy".
• In 2025 it ran "a webinar with the Israeli embassy attended by over 700 people", in the words of its own accounts.
• On 6 September 2026, two days before the settlement ban, Israel's chargé d'affaires addressed the Board's meeting of deputies and warned that UK measures could start a "tit for tat" cycle. The Board's statement on the ban began its argument with "As we have told both governments over recent weeks".
• Its senior vice president, Adrian Cohen, chairs the board of Labour Friends of Israel.

So when the papers quote the Board on Palestine, they are quoting a pro-Israel lobby under the name of British Jews.

We read every national UK news article in our archive that named the Board between 22 June and 1 November 2026, 126 in all, and measured who spoke in each one and for how many words.

What the figures show

• In 64 articles the Board's words were aimed at Palestine solidarity or at a measure for Palestinian rights. A Palestinian got to answer in 4 of them. The people who answered the Board were mostly politicians defending their own party, Green Party figures above all, in 40.
• In 86 articles about Palestine or Palestine solidarity that named the Board, Palestinians spoke in 5, with 1,125 words. The Board spoke in 70, with 8,042 words, and the Israeli state, a foreign government, in 38.
• Eleven national outlets quoted the Board and never once let a Palestinian speak in those articles: the Independent, the Daily Mail, the Mirror, ITV, GB News, the Express, the Telegraph, the Sun, Metro, the Daily Star and LBC.
• Not one of the 126 articles told readers that the Board's constitution commits it to "advance Israel's security, welfare and standing". 104 of them gave it its full title, the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

That is how a pro-Israel lobby becomes the voice of British Jews. When the papers present the Board's attacks on Palestine solidarity as the community's verdict, every argument about Palestine becomes an argument with Jews. That only benefits the Israeli state, by making criticism of it look like an attack on Jewish people, and it leaves Palestinians out of their own story.

"I don't know any Palestinian people"

It is not only the papers. Mike Tapp, the Labour MP for Dover and Deal, reported the Green Party to the Equality and Human Rights Commission over its motion calling Zionism racism. He was made an honorary vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel in 2024. The group's board is chaired by the Board of Deputies' senior vice president, Adrian Cohen.

In an interview published by Zeteo on 23 October, Shehab Khan asked him whether he had spoken to any Palestinian organisations before he wrote his letter. "No, I haven't," he said. Had he spoken to any Palestinian people about it? "No, I haven't. Only because I don't know any Palestinian people." Did he think that was telling? "No, not at all."

Tapp replied on X that the clip was "literally edited" and pointed to "the bit where I talk about meeting with Palestine Authority figures". Zeteo has published the full interview, which runs to 50 minutes.

Tapp's answer is not one MP's failing. It is how British politics has treated Palestinians since the Balfour Declaration, signed 109 years ago today.

Balfour did not name the people who lived in Palestine. He called them "existing non-Jewish communities", though more than nine in ten people living there were not Jewish, and promised only that nothing would prejudice their "civil and religious rights". The same sentence protected the "rights and political status" of Jews in other countries.

109 years later, an MP reports a party over a motion on Zionism without speaking to a single Palestinian about it, and the papers let Palestinians speak in 14 of 186 reports about settlements built on their land. Palestinians are still an afterthought in decisions about their own land. That is systemic racism, in British politics and in its press.

Outlet by outlet

The Independent quoted the Board in 29 articles. In 18 of them the Board's words were aimed at Palestine solidarity or a pro-Palestinian measure. The Independent did not let a Palestinian speak in any of its 31 articles that named the Board. The Daily Mail printed the Board against Palestine solidarity in 6 articles, and ITV and the Mirror in 5 each. None of them quoted a Palestinian.

Almost every Palestinian word came from the Guardian. It gave 601 words to Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the BDS movement, and 337 to the Palestinian priest Father Fadi Diab and the Kairos Palestine document. The Times quoted the BDS movement for 114 words. The BBC gave the Palestinian presidency one line, twice.

Palestinian organisations get named when there are arrests

A wider search of the same papers counted how often each organisation was named, and roughly how often it was quoted, on any subject. By that measure the Board was quoted in 106 national articles. The Palestinian Forum in Britain, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Palestinian Mission to the UK and the Palestinian Youth Movement were quoted in 39 between them at most, and they were named mostly as the organisers of marches where people were arrested.

Jewish organisations that criticise Israel barely exist in this coverage. Na'amod was named in 3 national articles in four months. Jewish Voice for Labour and Independent Jewish Voices were not named once.

How the papers turned the Board into "British Jews"

Read how the Telegraph reported the Board's vote on the Green Party on 25 October.

The vote was 118 to 1, among the deputies of a body whose constitution commits it to advancing Israel's standing. The Greens had adopted a motion calling Zionism racism. The Board's president, Phil Rosenberg, called the vote "a clear verdict" from Jewish communities, and the Telegraph's headline made it one. A reader learned that Jews had declared the Greens racist.

The Sun called the Board a "major Jewish organisation". The Daily Mail wrote that "Britain's largest Jewish group have formally declared Zack Polanski's Green Party 'racist'". We counted how the papers covered the Greens' vote itself in 447 articles on the Zionism vote.

In July Zack Polanski signed a letter asking the government to track Britons who fought for Israel in Gaza over "war crimes". The Board called the letter "another attempt to demonise Israelis and promote an atmosphere of intimidation against British Jews". The Daily Mail made the Board's charge its headline and put Polanski in the position of denying it.

When the papers described the Board at all, they described its size: "the UK's largest cross-community Jewish organisation" (the BBC, ITV and the Independent), "the largest Jewish organisation in Britain" (the Telegraph), "the largest body representing Jews in the UK" (the BBC) and "a body representing the community" (the Daily Mail). Only Middle East Eye, which is not in our national count, told its readers what the Board is: "a pro-Israel Jewish community organisation".

The public backed the settlement ban 52% to 17%. The papers reported Jewish fury.

On 8 September 2026 the Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, banned trade in goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Board had spent the week before lobbying the government against it.

When the ban came, the Board said: "We followed the Foreign Secretary's statement today with deep regret." Its statement also told the government what it thinks of the people at Palestine protests.

That is how the Board sees the people chanting at Palestine marches: as people who will settle for nothing less than the destruction of Israel.

Now read how the Daily Mail opened its report.

The Express opened with "Jewish leaders across the UK reacted with dismay". Its next sentence quoted the Chief Rabbi and a community leader.

Neither paper had any evidence for what British Jews as a whole thought. No published survey has asked British Jews about sanctions on settlements. The evidence the papers did have pointed the other way.

• The public backed the ban. A YouGov poll of 4,506 adults on 9 September found 52% approved and 17% disapproved. A poll showing majority support appeared in 9 of the 186 national reports on the ban: 6 in the Independent, 2 in The Times and 1 in the Guardian. None appeared in the Daily Mail, the Express, the Sun, the Telegraph or GB News.
• Senior rabbis backed the ban. The Guardian's headline on 9 September was "Senior UK rabbis come out in support of sanctions on Israeli settlements". Jonathan Wittenberg, a senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism, said: "What is taking place today in the West Bank is a Chillul HaShem, a violation of God's name of the worst order".
• One of the Board's own member organisations backed it. Yachad said: "These new policies do not target Israel; they target the occupation".
• Jewish voices critical of Israel, or backing the ban, spoke in 33 of the 186 reports. The Daily Mail and the Express quoted none.

A ban that most Britons supported, and that British Jews openly disagreed about, reached Daily Mail and Express readers as the government against the Jewish community.

Who spoke in 186 reports about settlements on Palestinian land

We read every national report published between 7 and 16 September that covered the ban, 186 in all, whether or not it named the Board.

• The Israeli state spoke in 119 reports, with 17,919 words.
• British Jewish communal bodies, the Board included, spoke in 72, with 10,140 words. The Chief Rabbi alone spoke in 55.
• Palestinians spoke in 14, with 2,099 words. Two of the 14 used Palestinians who work in settlement factories to argue against the ban. The Daily Mail: "Meddling Miliband is wrong about his West Bank sanctions... that's the view of Palestinians who fear having to face the fallout". The Times: "UK ban puts Palestinian jobs at risk, says Israeli factory boss".
• Hamas made it into 4 headlines. Palestinians made it into 2.

In reports about settlements built on Palestinian land, the Israeli state that built them spoke in more than eight times as many reports as Palestinians did.

The Express ran 13 reports on the ban. Communal bodies spoke in 8 and the Israeli state in 6. Palestinians and Jewish critics of Israel spoke in none. The Daily Mail ran 20: the Israeli state spoke in 15, communal bodies in 11 and Palestinians in 1.

What the Board has done

The Board's record on Israel and Palestine runs one way. In its own statements:

• It has opposed every measure against settlement trade we found it commenting on since 2015, whilst saying its community "overwhelmingly condemns violence by extremist settlers". It called the EU's labelling of settlement goods "totally misconceived but harmful", called the Quakers' decision not to invest in companies profiting from the occupation a "biased and petulant act", and condemned Airbnb for removing listings in West Bank settlements, which it called one of "the territories in the world that are under dispute".
• It denies the genocide. Its 2024 manifesto asked political parties to "Reject politically motivated attempts to falsely label Israel's response to the worst terror attack in its history as a 'genocide'" (manifesto).
• It opposed UK steps to pressure Israel during the genocide in Gaza. Its president said the partial halt to arms sales "gives succour to Hamas". It said the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant send "a terrible message". It held a banner protest outside Parliament against recognising Palestine, which it said "risks rewarding terror".
• It works to restrict Palestine solidarity at home. It welcomed reports that Palestine Action would be banned and urged a retrial after juries acquitted activists, lobbied for new police powers to restrict repeated protests, asked Glastonbury to drop Kneecap, and recommended that NHS uniform rules ban "badges, as well as posters and flags".
• It punished its own deputies for criticising Israel in public. In April 2025, 36 deputies signed a letter in the Financial Times saying "Israel's soul is being ripped out". The Board found every one of them in breach of its code of conduct, sent 31 of them a notice of criticism and suspended five for two years.

Who the Board speaks for

British Jews do not elect the Board. About 200 member synagogues and organisations elect its 300-plus deputies, and the deputies elect the officers who speak to the press. Phil Rosenberg became president in May 2024 by 124 votes to 106.

The director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, which surveys British Jews, has said how far that base reaches.

And on Israel's conduct, British Jews are far more critical than the Board. In the Institute's 2025 survey of 4,822 British Jews (report):

• 51% agreed that "The way Israel has conducted the war in Gaza clashes with my Jewish values", up from 40% the year before.
• 75% said they feel attached to Israel, and 64% called themselves Zionists.
• Among British Jews in their twenties, 24% called themselves anti-Zionist.

When the Daily Mail writes "Britain's Jewish community", it is printing the claim of a body whose base probably covers under half of British Jews, on a question no survey has ever asked them.

The money

The Board's biggest source of income is a voluntary £35-a-head Communal Contribution, which synagogues ask their members to pay along with their membership. When a synagogue elects a deputy, it promises to ask every one of its members to pay it. The Board's income in 2025 was £1,905,899, and it ended the year holding £5,470,598.

The papers gave a pro-Israel lobby the name of British Jews. In 81 of 86 articles about Palestine that named it, no Palestinian spoke at all.

Sources: NewsCord's archive of UK news articles; the Board of Deputies' constitution, statement of 1 September 2026, statement of 8 September 2026, 2024 manifesto and group accounts for 2021 and 2025, filed at Companies House; the Board's statement on the 36 deputies; the Board's motion on the Green Party; Isaac Herzog's message; the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Jonathan Boyd and 2025 survey; Jewish News on the chargé d'affaires at the Board and on Yachad and the ban; Zeteo's report, clip and full interview with Mike Tapp, and his reply; Labour Friends of Israel's announcement; the Balfour Declaration.