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,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. This is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Louis Adagel.

In November 1977, the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel. The two countries had just

fought a war four years earlier and a generation of Arabs and Israelis saw each other

as enemies. But that autumn there was a glimmer of hope. On the 9th of November, President Anwar

Sadat told the Egyptian parliament he was ready to go to Israel to talk to their parliament

if it would help bring peace. Most people dismissed it as rhetoric. The

American broadcaster ABC told a young Egyptian cameraman who'd filmed the

speech they wouldn't run it. It wasn't news. That cameraman was Mohammed Gohar.

It wasn't only ABC who didn't believe Sadat, but most of the Egyptian people and

most of the world did not believe that Sadat is ready to go to his enemies country and deliver a speech.

The Israelis were equally skeptical, but they played along.

Two days later, Sadat's Israeli counterpart in Arken-Bagan sent a message to the Egyptian parliament.

President Sadat would be most welcome if he did decide to come.

Why shouldn't he try to come to Jerusalem. Manyhow, if he does come, he will be received with

utmost hospitality and which will enable him to speak from the platform of the

necessity. Mohammed Gohar worked as a freelance and a few days after Sadat speech he got a

...