The Palestinian Authority government is again facing criticism for suppressing civil liberties in the West Bank. David Keyes, executive director of Advancing Human Rights, has described the Western-backed government as becoming “worryingly similar” to the Iran-backed Hamas government in the Gaza Strip that “shuts down social media conferences, represses women, tortures dissidents and arrests journalists.” The political legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority government – which has recently attempted to rebrand itself as the government of the State of Palestine – has also become a subject of renewed scrutiny, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now in the ninth year of his four-year term. Yesterday TheTower.org indicated that the Palestinian ruler was merely in the eighth year of the four-year term to which he was elected, but Abbas was in fact elected in January 2005. TheTower.org regrets the error.