Given the enormous crisis facing our country,” Bernie Sanders said to supporters the night of the Iowa Caucuses, “it is just too late for establishment politics.” In many ways, this is the essence of Sanders’s appeal. He doesn’t do high-dollar fundraisers. He doesn’t seek to ingratiate himself to Democratic Party power players. He doesn’t change his decades-old talking points.

Politics-as-usual is corrupt, dishonest, and incapable of addressing desperate poverty, racism, climate collapse, and other emergencies, so Sanders offers unusual politics.

Among the many ways in which Sanders has bucked convention, his persistent advocacy for the humanity and dignity of Palestinians stands out. It’s not that he is the leftist we’d like him to be on the question. But it is not customary to say, as he did at last night’s debate in Brooklyn, “In the long run, if we are ever going to bring peace . . .  we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity.”