SENSE CHECK
Issue 01 — Friday 25 September 2026
Good morning.
We spent this week on the questions most outlets have quietly stopped asking out loud, which is what happens when you sit a Rabbi down and ask him the hardest things we had on Israel, Palestine and Iran. He answered all of them, including the two we expected him to swerve. Everything else we published this week came out of that one conversation, which tells you how good it was. Here is the lot.
THE ONE THAT MATTERED
Israel, Palestine, Iran: A Middle East Expert Answers the Hardest Questions.
Rabbi Pesach Wolicki on why the collapse in Israel’s international standing isn’t a communications problem, what Christian Zionism gets right and what it flattens, and where the American conservative movement is quietly turning against a position it has held for forty years. He doesn’t sound like anyone else on this subject, which is the entire point.
FROM THE SAME CONVERSATION
Does Israel still care what the world thinks? The most uncomfortable answer in the episode, and the one that explains the rest of it. Watch Now
Is Netanyahu out of time? On the future of Israeli defence, and the assumption underneath it that nobody is testing. Watch Now
STILL WORTH YOUR TIME
Editor’s Desk: £72 million and nothing in return. Where Reform UK’s crypto money actually came from, why none of it is illegal, and what that tells you about British party funding. Watch Here
Editor’s Desk: one year since Charlie Kirk’s death. On political violence, and the room we sat in last year where people argued it can be justified. Watch Here
The podcast: Katharine Birbalsingh. Britain’s strictest headteacher on discipline, expectations and what schools are afraid to say. It got heated. Watch Here
ELSEWHERE THIS WEEK
The Netanyahu snub. Netanyahu made an unusually short UN visit this week, in and out within hours, with no overnight stay and, notably, no meeting with Trump. Officials called it a scheduling issue, since Trump left New York before Netanyahu arrived, but reporting suggests real frustration inside the administration over his handling of Gaza. Delegates walked out as he took the stage. He’s isolated internationally, facing an ICC warrant that limits where he can travel, and a tough election at home next month. This is the most significant of the four in terms of the shift it signals: even Israel’s closest ally seems to visibly keeping its distance in public.
Danny Tommo (Daniel Thomas), a far-right activist and former Tommy Robinson bodyguard filmed himself slashing a migrant dinghy in the Channel with a rescue worker still aboard. Hampshire Police are investigating. Separately, hundreds of anti-migrant protesters gathered at Gosport on a false rumour about where the boat would land, and six were arrested. The boat eventually landed in Dover after 51 people spent 33 hours at sea. This sits alongside the other viral clip this week of a father boarding a rescue boat ahead of his own child, and separate charges against people for assaulting an emergency worker during a boat incident. Together they show the Channel crossings story shifting from a policy debate into direct, sometimes violent, vigilante action on the water itself.
COMING UP
Hyphen House Launch is on tonight, so if you’re in London and reading this there is still room, we look forward to seeing you.
New guest lands Sunday with the trailer, episode is live on Tuesday.
More Editors Desks episodes on the way next week!
That’s the week. If something in here was useful, forward it to one person who’ll disagree with it.
Okiki
Chief of Staff & Head of Operations, Common Sense Network
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