comma, colon or dash with apposition: forms of..: the pure and ethnic

[breatheeasy]

Hi, I'm editing an article for somebody and I'm just stuck on what should be the proper punctuation in this case.

"Since I concentrate mainly on Israel, I study the extra-legal with respect to only particular forms of colonization, the pure and ethnic models of settlers' colonialism."

That's how he has it. My doubt is the comma after colonialization. My two guesses would be the following, maybe moreso the colon. I've always wondered about this "definitional" use of the comma, I know I use it a lot but I'm not sure if it's correct, or at least not in this context. Thanks in advance, please if you do leave a response try to leave a correction or cite something that backs you up, if possible. Thank you

"Since I concentrate mainly on Israel, I study the extra-legal with respect to only particular forms of colonization: the pure and ethnic models of settlers' colonialism."

"Since I concentrate mainly on Israel, I study the extra-legal with respect to only particular forms of colonization - the pure and ethnic models of settlers' colonialism."

 

[Dimcl]

This is an oft-repeated subject on the forum and I think that the general concensus in this case would be the colon or dash. I would be more tempted to use a colon in front of a list and a dash in this sentence.

 

[breatheeasy]

Thanks. I wanted to mention that I did do a lot of searching on the subject before asking but I just couldn't find an answer in this case.

 

[anothersmith]

I agree that either the colon or the dash would be appropriate.