saeed uses comedy. you use food. talk about that?, food is obviously something everyone wants to eat, even in situations of siege or war. you have to eat. and what basically my coauthor and i do is we use food as a narrative device to share of the palestinian experience. it's not just about the food per se, although it is unique in its own right. it's about sharing the stories of the palestinians of gaza. we have been removaling largely women, farmers, and others as well. and use the food to talk about the depopulation of the villages, the ethnic cleansing of the lands from which the palestinians came into gaza in 1948 and populated gaza, and made the food so interesting. again, we use the food as a narrative to talk about the current situation and the history. >> many ways to put the crisis into perspective. thank you to all of our guests. until next time, we'll see you online. >> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm del walters. these are the stories we're following for you. >> russia and i president putinn particular have a responsi

american relations hooshang amirahmadi an iranian american professor and political analyst and last saeed a former professor and palestinian rights activists the office of the director of national intelligence and the department of justice have released a joint statement in response to the revelations stating it is entirely false that u.s. intelligence agencies conduct electronic surveillance of political religious or activist figure solely because they disagree with public policies or criticize the government or for exercising constitutional rights i was joined earlier by one of the men on that list fassel gil i first asked him why he believes the government would want to monitor him. that is the million dollar question in my mind right now i have absolutely no idea what in my background could lead somebody to believe that i would harbor those views or have those feelings or that i'm somebody that should be targeted i just have no idea and that's what i've been trying to figure out ever found out ok quiz quest time now according to the statement from the office of the director of nationa

but the chief peace negotiator, saeed erekat, he welcomed, he thought it was the right step in this overallss. is there a real split now between hamas and the palestinian authority? >> as you know, there's been a seven-year split. and they have only just in recent weeks begun to start to undue the damage from that division. the unity government had just been created when we had this crisis in the west bank and in jerusalem and now in gaza. so the ink is barely dry on the agreement so it is under a lot of pressure. it's not surprising that hamas and fatah see things very different. >> because the egyptians, i'm told, are very, very angry at hamas for rejecting their proposal. how's that going to play out, the relationship between hamas and egypt? >> well, the relationship was not good to begin with. for the past year, hamas has been on the receiving end of immense pressure by the new regime in egypt since the brotherhood president was overthrown a year ago. there's no love lost and trust is at an all-time low. but the problem is that the egyptians are absolutely essential part of this proces

amirahmadi an iranian american professor who teaches international relations at rutgers university aga saeed a former political science professor and champion a muslim civil liberties and nihad awad executive director of care the nation's largest muslim civil rights group all of these men were monitor of the foreign intelligence surveillance surveillance act hours under the fisa act the department of justice most show a judge with that highly secretive foreign intelligence surveillance court that there is enough evidence to believe that an american citizen is not only an agent of an international terrorist organization but that he or she are or may be participating in or helping espionage sabotage or terrorism problem is that all five of these high profile men have absolutely no known connections to terrorist organizations or all outstanding american citizens who have all led thoroughly public lives and none of them have ever been implicated in any crimes and none have ever gone on the record supporting things like violence. when asked by greenwald about being on the list feisal gill's. i ju

iranian citizen pastor saeed abedin any remains in prison. the iranian authorities sentenced him to eight years behind bars simply because of his religious beliefs. we will continue to call for his release and we will continue to work for it. make no mistake, we will continue to stand up for religious minority communities under assault and in danger around the world from jehovah's witnesses to muslims. so we have a long way to go to safeguard these rights. we also have a long way to go when governments use national security as an excuse to repress members of minority religious groups. in russia, the government has used a succession of evermore punitive laws against what they call extremism to justify crude measures against people of faith. in china authorities harass christians. they arrest tibetan buddhists simply for possessing the dalai lama's photograph. they prevent weaker muslims from providing religious education to their children or fasting during ramadan. in uzbekistan the government continues to imprison citizens, raid religious gat

iranian citizen pastor saeed abedini remains imprisoned.e iranian authorities sentenced him to eight years behind bars simply because of his religious beliefs. we will continue to call for his release and we will continue to work for it. and make no mistake: we will continue to stand up for religious minority communities under assault and in danger around the world, from jehovah's witnesses to baha'is to ahmadi muslims. so we have a long way to go to safeguard these rights. we also have a long way to go when governments use national security as an excuse to repress members of minority religious groups. in russia, the government has used a succession of ever more punitive laws against what they call extremism to justify crude measures against people of faith. in china, authorities harass christians. they arrest tibetan buddhists simply for possessing the dalai lama's photograph. and they prevent uighur muslims from providing religious education to their children or fasting during ramadan. and in uzbekistan, the government continues to impris