Philip Klutznick the American Jewish leaders to meet with President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to discuss Middle Eastern policy and events. In 1977, Klutznick became President of the World Jewish Congress, succeeding Nahum Goldmann who had led the group since 1949. During negotiations that preceded the 1977 Camp David Accords, Klutznick met with Israeli leader Menachem Begin, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Jimmy Carter, as well as other US administration officials. In 1978, Klutznick initiated a commission headed by Guy de Rothschild to examine the economic implications of Arab-Israeli peace for Israel and the international Jewish community.
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