Anwar Sadat but was dismissed, since the alleged slanders, having taken place outside the country, fell outside the Egyptian courts' jurisdiction. The film was critically acclaimed in America, but was unpopular among Egyptians and in the Egyptian press. Western authors attributed the film's poor reception in Egypt to racism – Gossett being African American – in the Egyptian government or Egypt in general. Either way, one Western source wrote that Sadat's portrayal by Gossett "bothered race-conscious Egyptians and wouldn't have pleased [the deceased] Sadat," who identified as Egyptian and Northeast African, not black or African American. The two-part series earned Gossett an
Anwar Sadat be socially conservative he gave them "considerable cultural and ideological autonomy" in exchange for political support. In 1971, three years into the War of Attrition in the Suez Canal zone, Sadat endorsed in a letter the peace proposals of UN negotiator Gunnar Jarring, which seemed to lead to a full peace with Israel on the basis of Israel's withdrawal to its pre-war borders. This peace initiative failed as neither Israel nor the United States of America accepted the terms as discussed then. Shortly after taking office, Sadat shocked many Egyptians by dismissing and imprisoning two of the most powerful figures