2182“So I was doing a legal programme in Palestine, or the West Bank, looking into the situation with refugees and also Palestinian villagers living in wadis throughout the West Bank.

”We visited one wadi just outside of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. We were taken in by the local sheikh, who gave us plums from his garden and brought us into his home and gave us mint tea, introduced his entire family to us.

”We start talking to him about his expectations and about his conception of what the US policy was towards Palestine and towards Israel. This was a big guy, he’s got authority, he’s the head of the village. He was sitting down with us, all naïve 20-something-year-olds.

”We asked what he wanted the US to do, what he thought the US was doing wrong. Very soon, after telling us all the grievances he had with US foreign policy, he almost teared up because he realised Palestinians are being marginalised and being slowly pushed out of the West Bank.

"He said this to us. ‘Don’t we deserved the same recognition that the US gives the Israelis, the same support? Because it’s a humanitarian issue that’s getting overlooked by a huge majority of the world population.’

“I stayed there for only two days and then left, without doing anything substantial, which made me feel guilty. But that’s the phrase that stuck with me.”

Geoffrey says the man he met was Sheikh Walid Hammad who runs the Wadalneess Charity. Taken in Vienna, Austria on the SOTM World Tour with the help of Eurail.com.