In the book, Finkelstein documents what he claims is the falsification of Israel's human rights record by Dershowitz and his plagiarism of research from Joan Peters' book From Time Immemorial. In response, Dershowitz's lawyers wrote letters to the University of California Press threatening a lawsuit if they published the book. At one point, Dershowitz called on the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to intervene on his behalf, to stop the book from being published, but the Governor refused.