Exactly one week today, I attended my first march and swooned for days before and after at the immense outpouring of support for the crises in the Middle East region.

By the end of the week, I found myself in a milieu that diametrically contrasted last Saturday: geographically, I was in Durham; politically, I was in the presence of a bevy of most ardent Zionists; while academically, I became the persona non grata of the event.

The trip started promisingly – lodged at Durham Castle College, the breath-taking beauty of Durham was utterly intoxicating.

While many British cities preserve the historical feel in certain sections of the city, Durham has succeeded in blending – and preserving – the beauty of its heritage with working, modern life.

The College, home to a large number of students, sits regally on a hill and across the quad from the equally momentous Cathedral.

While the Castle’s architectural beauty and history – it was built in the eleventh century – rendered me speechless upon my first steps into the courtyard, the medieval plumbing and eerie creaking doors soon found me cursing and vowing never to repeat the experience…

…until breakfast, when I found myself gazing up at the vaulted ceiling, the dusky portraits of College Masters from centuries gone by, and realising that it would be entirely unsurprising if a number of Hogwart’s students breezed past the window in a whirl of broomsticks, quaffles and bludgers.

The conference, addressing the status and guises of virtual states in the modern world, proved to be an equally tortuous love affair.

As is now the custom, I passed the morning gazing sickly at the rapidly moving clock and pondering whether I could slip away from the conference before any one realised.

All too soon, I found myself seated at the panel and pondering whether my heart, on this occasion, would leap from my mouth, as its beating increased to epic thuddings.

This public-speaking induced terror was further heightened by the realisation that I seemed to lack correlation with the themes of my co-panelists, and that the Middle East had not even been mentioned all day.

In a moment of tragic genius, I decided to incorporate this into my performance as an improvised introduction.

Inwardly smirking at my feat of intellectualism at the eleventh hour, I strode up to the podium and began with the words:

Today we have been on a global tour of a plethora of virtual states, and discovered the equally multitudinous forms in which they might be found. However, perhaps one of the greatest examples of a territory that can be regarded as imaginary, unreal, and real – depending to whom you are speaking – is Israel…

And so began my expostulation of the conditions of the Palestinian refugee camps, of Palestinian endeavours to maintain their culture and heritage, and how their plight can be ended only by a return to their homeland.

Almost half way through, I began to notice that my audience was visibly stoic; in contrast to other conferences, in which members of the audience nod and bleat agreement, these spectators were looking, if anything, increasingly mortified.

Racked with consternation, I ran through a mental checklist: had I done my zip up? Did I have the remainder of a reluctantly eaten salad leaf protruding from my teeth? Or, did I say a rude word by accident in a moment of severe nerves?

My initial surmise that I was being paranoid after a sleepless night at the mercy of the screaming water pipes was dismissed when my co-panelists received around ten questions each, and I received one, from the discussant.

In academic terms, no questions often equates to the kiss of death, while counting the question posed by the discussant is akin to requesting a job reference from your own mother.

Given that a sizable proportion of the audience were professors of politics and international relations, this surprised me substantially, until the panel ended and the audience clapped obediently before trotting out hastily to imbibe steaming plastic cups of coffee.

In a nanosecond, a bevy of lecturers scuttled up from the audience to pump the hand of my co-panelist and hail her speech  – a speech in which she stated that Lebanon was not a viable state due to its fractious circumstances – and proclaim that they were from Israel.

As their ululations escalated, the realisation that my paper had been received in a manner similar to a fart in a crowded lift dawned and I pootled to lift my spirits in town with a bit of book purchasing and tiramisu snaffling.

Alas, if I thought the day had gone bad, the early evening held further inane horrors.

Shoehorned into a minibus (a contraption that I hold a particular loathing for in general), the ululators squeezed in next to me and guffawed and boomed for the duration of the twenty minute journey to dinner.

Amidst the nuggets of wisdom expounded was the peaceful nature inherent in Israeli culture  – since Hebrew lacks a word for ‘terror’, ‘terrorism’, and ‘terrorist’ – their fortuity that their favourite Tel Aviv café was not hit by the Arabs, and a wish that: ‘if only Sharon would wake up, everything would be okay again’.

In the space of seven days, then, the awesome power of solidarity and the bitter taste of rejection were manifested; it was a foul medicine, but a reality that I had to face eventually.

It is easy to sit in cafés and ruminate how we will disseminate the truth about Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq to a youth misguided by the gold-lined pockets of right-wing academics, yet the reality of confronting an audience trenchantly opposed to your views is a different experience altogether.

Nevertheless, though at times it seems there is only one voice, it is nevertheless being heard, and somewhere, there are people who not only agree and reiterate, but are also learning and discovering.

That is solace enough.