Devastating videos of Israeli forces attacking Muslim Palestinians praying in Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan began to proliferate on social media late last week. In one such video, Palestinian women in the mosque are seen screaming and running from stun grenades fired by Israeli soldiers. This is in one of the holiest places of worship in one of the holiest months for Muslims around the world. Israeli forces injured hundreds of Palestinians, including medics treating injuries nearby, and the Israeli government has used airstrikes, rockets, and rubberized steel bullets to inflict violence against any resistance from the Palestinians. These troubling videos followed the decision of the Israeli government to forcibly evict families from the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. Although the Israeli Supreme Court stepped in to pause the evictions, this is part of a larger decades-long pattern of forced evictions, home demolitions, and displacement of Palestinians. The violence that started in Jerusalem has continued and spread, leading to massive unrest in the region and the worst escalation of violence in seven years between Israel and Palestine. Potential increased military action will only exacerbate the current situation with daily air strikes by the Israeli military in Gaza, Hamas launching over a thousand rockets to Southern and Central Israel, and growing violence on the streets already plaguing communities across the region. Morally courageous American leaders, including a slew of members of Congress, have already come out in support of the Palestinian people and called for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the Israeli policies of occupation and displacement of Palestinian families. The Biden administration must immediately do the same by leveraging its longstanding relationship with the Israeli government to call for an immediate ceasefire. In contrast, Biden and top cabinet officials seemingly offered support to the Israeli government to continue its policies precipitating the current crisis. In a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden offered “unwavering support” for Israel’s “right to defend itself,” and made no mention of Netanyahu’s responsibility in inflaming and perpetuating violence as a political ploy to distract from his own diminishing power to govern. The United States even blocked the UN Security Council’s attempts to reduce tensions between Israel and Palestinians. With nearly $4 billion a year in U.S. military aid to Israel, the Biden administration has a responsibility to hold the Israeli government accountable. Before more violence ensues, the U.S. government must denounce the recent violence and call on the Israeli government to stop forced evictions, mass arrests, and other policies meant to harm and escalate tensions. We urge the Biden administration to forcefully advocate for an immediate ceasefire before many more civilians -- who will disproportionately be Palestinian --lose their lives.

India is in the midst of the world's worst COVID outbreak. Hospitals in India are stretched beyond their breaking point. Mass crematoriums cannot keep pace with the constant stream of the dying. Helping India in its hour of crisis is the right thing to do morally – but it's also the right thing for America. None of us are safe until the entire world is rid of COVID.

Landmines don’t understand a ceasefire. That means, even years after hostilities have ended, they can be triggered by a cow or a child and explode everyone and everything within a 27-meter radius. It’s a no-brainer that these abhorrent weapons should’ve NEVER gone into the ground in the first place. On the campaign trail, President Biden agreed, stating a commitment to "promptly roll back Trump’s deeply misguided decision" to continue their use. But the toing and froing since he’s taken office is not a great sign. That means we need to get LOUD to tell him that we demand an end to the use of landmines — for good. Will you add your name demanding President Biden end Trump’s reprehensible landmine policy?

President Biden is breaking promises he made on the campaign trail to follow in Trump’s footsteps and keep the U.S. refugee cap at an all time low. It’s abhorrent. Earlier this year, Biden pledged to raise the refugee cap for the next fiscal year to 125,000. Yet not even 100 days in office and his administration is backpedaling from that goal at a breathtaking pace — keeping the cap at 15,000 for the time being — and slamming the door shut on thousands of people who urgently need our help. If President Biden does not raise this cap immediately, the current pace of admissions will mean just 4,510 refugees will be resettled this year — far below the current limit and the lowest of any president ever. The U.S. has an obligation to open its doors to refugees. In fact, it’s a failed violence-first U.S. foreign policy that has driven displacement around the globe — exacerbating violence, systemic inequality, and the effects of the climate crisis — for decades. Congress must save the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Add your name to tell Congress to act immediately and stop Biden from further dismantling the U.S. refugee program.

President Biden is breaking promises he made on the campaign trail to follow in Trump’s footsteps and keep the U.S. refugee cap at an all time low. It’s abhorrent. Earlier this year, Biden pledged to raise the refugee cap for the next fiscal year to 125,000. Yet not even 100 days in office and his administration is backpedaling from that goal at a breathtaking pace — keeping the cap at 15,000 for the time being — and slamming the door shut on thousands of people who urgently need our help. If President Biden does not raise this cap immediately, the current pace of admissions will mean just 4,510 refugees will be resettled this year — far below the current limit and the lowest of any president ever. The U.S. has an obligation to open its doors to refugees. In fact, it’s a failed violence-first U.S. foreign policy that has driven displacement around the globe — exacerbating violence, systemic inequality, and the effects of the climate crisis — for decades. We have to get loud NOW. Add your name to let President Biden know your disgust with his decision to keep refugee admissions at an all time low and urge him to increase the cap as quickly as possible.

The US-backed Saudi-led coalition has been killing Yemenis for since its “intervention” 6 years ago. Recently, and out of desperation, the US-backed coalition escalated its tactics, implementing blockade on fuel entering the country. This effectively dismantles the supply chain in Yemen, leaving millions without food and medicine. It leaves hospitals and homes without power as fuel is required to power generators. This blockade is starving millions of Yemenis and the UN estimates 400,000 Yemeni children could die from starvation if the blockade is not lifted. Now a child dies every 75 seconds. Yemenis have been deprived of their basic human rights of water, food, electricity, and life at the hands of the US-funded onslaught. This is a preventable, man-made humanitarian crisis. We will not stand by the deaths of our families and people. President Biden and the United States must publicly condemn the blockade on Yemen & end all US support for the Saudi blockade.

In 2015, President Obama negotiated the Iran Deal -- an agreement that blocked Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons in return for lifting sanctions that had devastated the Iranian economy. The deal provided unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear program and created the most instructive nuclear inspections that any country has ever voluntarily accepted. The Iran deal was the result of years of painstaking negotiations and is one of the strongest and most significant nuclear nonproliferation arrangements in history. With this deal, we peacefully eliminated the threat of a nuclear armed Iran and strengthened our own national security. Without it, we face yet another avoidable disastrous conflict in the Middle East. In 2018, Trump reneged on the Iran deal and imposed sanctions on Iran. With the U.S. out of the deal, Iran has had little incentive to abide by the deal and has reduced its compliance.Trump undermined American credibility for future international agreements, further isolated the U.S. from major allies, and impoverished the Iranian people. Now is the time for the United States to salvage the Iran nuclear deal. President Biden campaigned on the promise of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and we must hold him to that. Returning to the Iran deal is a necessary requirement for effective, broader diplomacy with Iran. The United States, along with people worldwide, deserve a long-term diplomatic approach to Iran and the wider region that minimizes human suffering and fosters lasting peace. The U.S. has yet to reenter the agreement and this historic diplomatic opportunity is at risk of being lost. President Biden must ignore attacks from warhawks and take bold steps to jumpstart diplomacy with Iran. Sign the petition: Demand President Biden to reenter the Iran nuclear deal.

As we continue to grapple with a pandemic, we must not forget our ongoing gun violence epidemic — and we must treat it like the national security priority it is. With so many factors fueling it, we know it’s not going to be solved overnight. BUT Congress could act NOW to mitigate the extent of mass shooting injuries and deaths. One place to start is by finally passing a federal ban on all assault weapons. With your help, we can make sure Congress hears us loud and clear when we say weapons of war do not belong in our streets. Together, we can push Congress to do their job — that means representing AND and protecting us with legislation that will ban assault weapons from our streets.

Despite being elected to move away from Trump policies of the past, despite a clear reckoning on our priorities in the wake of COVID, and despite the fact that budgets are moral documents, President Biden is likely to propose a $740 BILLION budget that would keep Pentagon spending at Trump-era levels. Disappointed doesn’t begin to cut it. We’re furious. A growing chorus in Congress is too. But while Congress, not the White House, is ultimately in control of the purse strings, progressive champions can’t stop this budget on their own. That’s why we need to turn the pressure up even higher, and remind everyone in Congress and the White House: We want our priorities put back in order and that means cutting the Pentagon budget.

Right now, concrete is being dumped into sacred lands of the Okinawan people for the construction of a new U.S. military base. With over 800 military bases around the world already, the construction of another base is not only harming the Okinawan people but ramping up the threat of war. 2021 has to be the year we finally close the new base in Okinawa and begin a pathway towards peace in the Pacific — and we do that by closing down our foreign military bases and building up diplomacy. We’re in a unique, but narrow opportunity with President Biden in office to raise the alarms on this, and other, disastrous bases. That means we’ve got to jump into action and urge Defense Secretary Austin to stop the construction NOW — and we need your help in getting LOUD.

The media and many irresponsible politicians are completely failing to meet this moment in history by focusing on a symptom of a global economic and health crisis -- families and unaccompanied minors at the U.S./Mexico border -- rather than its root causes. Recently asked by President Biden to lead "the administration’s efforts to deter migration to the southwestern border by working to improve conditions in Central America," Vice President Kamala Harris can help turn things around by -- among other things -- prioritizing COVID-19 vaccine access for Central America and other countries immigrants are currently fleeing from in this time of a global health and economic crisis. No matter how many oversimplified anecdotes journalists collect, or public officials that say it, pretending that people risk their lives and leave everything they know just because a President in a different country is a "nice guy" has to be one of the most ridiculous stories our pandemic has produced yet. To suggest that either talking tough, more enforcement, or the further criminalization of immigrants is a solution to this crisis is not just irresponsible (we now have decades of data that prove the opposite) -- it is also dangerous. This is dangerous not just for immigrants and their countries of origin, who bear the brunt of this harmful thinking, but really for all of us in the U.S. and around the world when our best shot at a better future right now is directing every spare resource we have towards stamping out COVID-19. With VP Kamala Harris leading these latest efforts, she has a real opportunity to help send this message, to save lives, and to economically assist Central America and the world by prioritizing vaccine access for all. If enough of us sign-on and share this, we'll help give her the support she needs to do so. With dueling health, economic, and climate crises -- vaccine access isn't the only thing Central America and immigrants need right now -- but it could be the beginning of the spark needed to start moving towards a world where people migrate out of want, and not out of need. That's our only chance at ever stopping the negative effects associated with immigration. Until then, we need to take this moment in history as another reminder that we can't wall off our problems. Viruses know no borders. We either liberate ourselves together or not at all. Any journalist or public official that thinks otherwise is failing all of us.

President Biden is being applauded by Jared Kushner — the very person who was catastrophic to U.S. foreign policy. When Kushner followed his father-in-law into the White House, we had successful, working nuclear agreement between Iran, the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China. But they decided it would be better to walk away from that successful deal to make childish threats, launch new military misadventures, and put us right back on the path to war with Iran. President Biden should listen to US — not Jared Kushner! During the Trump years, we repeatedly came close to all out war with Iran. If the United States doesn’t move toward for diplomacy now, we’ll be right back on the brink of war. Jared Kushner supporting Biden’s approach to Iran is a bad sign. Now’s the time to choose peace and diplomacy, and it’s up to us to make it happen. Can you add your name to our note urging President Biden to join the Iran deal and walk away from Trump’s catastrophic policies?