The PGFTU has been heavily criticized by insiders such as Muhammad Al-Arouri, former head of the PGFTU legislative unit until his dismissal in 2005. The head of the GFTU in 1982, Mahmud Ziyada—a friend of Al-Arouri and a unionist imprisoned for a total of four years during the Israeli crackdown on trade unions around the time of the First Intifada—resigned in protest over the lack of democratic elections; (today Ziyada is with the Democracy and Workers' Rights Center). Bassim Khoury of the Palestinian Authority raised similar concerns over the failure of the PGFTU to represent workers, decades later in 2007.