Goodreads asked Jeremy R. Hammond:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Jeremy R. Hammond I first thought to write this book during Israel's 22-day full-scale military assault on the Gaza Strip from Dec.27, 2008 to Jan. 18, 2009, "Operation Cast Lead". Witnessing how the US media was reporting the massacre, I determined to set the record straight.

But how could I write about contemporary events in the conflict without providing an overview of its roots? With that question on my mind, I set out writing "The Rejection of Palestinian Self-Determination: The Struggle for Palestine and the Roots of the Israeli-Arab Conflict."

I returned again to my idea to write a book about Operation Cast Lead in May 2011 when Barack Obama gave a speech mentioning the "1967 lines" as a starting point for negotiations on borders and was astonished by the universal agreement among commentators and analysts that this represented a "shift" in US policy, as well as the media narrative that Obama had gotten "tough" on Israel.

I set out writing. To set the stage for the chapter on Operation Cast Lead, it looks at how Hamas came to political power in Gaza.

After detailing what happened during that massacre and how the US media distorted events so as to manufacture consent for the US's policy of supporting Israel's war crimes, I go into the history of the so-called "peace process" and how the new Obama administration set out to maintain that status quo, explaining how in truth this is the process by which the US and Israel block implementation of the two-state solution.

Events kept overtaking me as I was writing, my original vision for the book was expanded significantly. The book covers other important events, such as Israel's deadly attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla in May 2010 and 2012's "Operation Pillar of Defense". It examines Israel's policy of collectively punishing the civilian population of Gaza as well as the nature of its occupation of the West Bank and settlement policy.

Throughout, it analyzes the US role, as well as the role of the US media, telling not only what has happened in the conflict but, crucially, how that story has been told by the mainstream media -- and America's "newspaper of record", the New York Times, in particular.

By assessing the causes for the continuing conflict, the book lays out the way forward to a just and lasting peace and what is required to get there.

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