Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

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Sounds.

Hello and you back to the assassination in 1948 in Jerusalem of the United Nations first Middle East

mediator. Count Folker Benadotte was a Swedish diplomat and member of the Swedish royal family.

He was killed four months after his appointment to try to bring

peace to what was already proving one of the most difficult conflicts in the world.

I've been talking to his son Bertil Bernardaud about his father and his mission.

In May 1948, two events occurred that would change the Middle East forever.

On the afternoon of Friday the 14th of May

Jewish leaders declared a Jewish state of Israel in what was then called Palestine.

Hours later on the strike of midnight more than a quarter of a century of British administration of Palestine came to an end.

From the ports of Palestine, the last British troops were trickling out.

The British soldier had spent 25 years performing a thankless dangerous

task. Now Britain's mandate was over. Contingents of Jews embarked for Palestine.

The ban on immigration was no more.

As the British left, the war that had been simmering for months between the Jews and the

Palestinians filled the vacuum.

...