One of the few things that J. William Fulbright and Richard Nixon had in common was a belief that American Zionists exerted too much influence on U.S. foreign policy. Although Nixon's national security adviser was himself a Jew, he too favored a “balanced” approach toward the Middle East. During their musings on a new world order, Kissinger and Fulbright did not fail to outline a lasting settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, one that included an Israeli willingness to trade peace for land and an Arab willingness to recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state and to sign peace treaties with it. Indeed, in 1970 Fulbright decided to jeopardize his carefully constructed anti- Vietnam coalition and to propose an extension, rather than reduction, of American commitment overseas as part of an effort to bring a lasting peace to the Middle East.

Most of the Arab world had severed formal ties with the United States in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967 in which the Israelis, utilizing American arms and supplies, had crushed the Soviet-supplied Egyptian and Syrian forces. During the fighting, the Israelis seized and occupied vast portions of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. As of 1969 Israel controlled all of the Sinai Desert up to the western bank of the Suez Canal; the Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal area jutting toward Tel Aviv from the Sinai; the Golan Heights, a strategic hill area from which, before the war, Syrian and Palestinian gunners had lobbed artillery shells into Jewish settlements; and East Jerusalem and the West Bank, both of which had been seized from Jordan.