A former colleague of mine liked to say that there are certain ideas that vanish in the presence of thought. Among those ideas is settler colonialism – or rather, the invidious, hypocritical and historically illiterate way in which it is often denounced in anti-Israel polemics and protests.

What is settler colonialism? The Legal Information Institute offers the following definition: “a system of oppression based on genocide and colonialism that aims to displace a population of a nation (oftentimes indigenous people) and replace it with a new settler population.”