“SILENCE is not an option” when thousands of civilians are being killed in Gaza, Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) general secretary Andrea Bradley told a packed Stop the War Coalition fringe meeting at the Scottish TUC today.

Citing critics who asked why it was the business of a Scottish teachers’ union what happened in the Middle East, Ms Bradley declared that “the EIS and its activists won’t accept silence when bombs are raining down on schools.”

She described solidarity action taken, including donations of tens of thousands toward humanitarian aid in Gaza, writing to the British government demanding an end to arms sales and support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Stop the War Scotland secretary Sophie Johnson called on the movement to “strengthen our institutions of peace,” and noted the contradictory positions taken by the Scottish government, “which took an early ceasefire line but still needs to be pressed on arms sales,” allows use of a publicly owned airport (Prestwick) by the US air force supplying Israel’s war, and opposes nuclear weapons but champions the US-led Nato war alliance.

Scottish CND’s Rab Paterson stressed the need to prioritise adherence to international law and described how breaches of international law in the guise of “humanitarian intervention” had created a lawless world order on the brink of catastrophic, possibly nuclear conflict.

Palestinian activist Dr Issam Hijjawi, responding to questions on the one or two-state solution for Palestine, said such decisions should be left to the Palestinians themselves but that the priority of solidarity action was to fight for the internationally recognised rights of Palestinians, to self-determination and an end to the occupation.