Document: While "moderate" Palestinians reject "Jewish" Israeli state - they
propose Islam as official religion of Palestinian state
Dr. Aaron Lerner 19 April 2009

CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF PALESTINE
Third Draft,
7 March 2003, revised in March 25,2003
www.jmcc.org/documents/palestineconstitution-eng.pdf
...
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE
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Article (5) Arabic and Islam are the official Palestinian language and
religion. Christianity and all other monotheistic religions shall be
equally revered and respected. The Constitution guarantees equality in
rights and duties to all citizens irrespective of their religious belief.

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PREFACE The executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization,
having renewed the instructions of the Palestinian National Council for the
establishment of a special committee to prepare the Constitution of the
State of Palestine, the Constitution Committee has proceeded to accomplish
what had been initiated in 1999.

After great effort, with over two hundred meetings, workshops and
discussions, the committee for the preparation of the Constitution, in
cooperation with the civil society, academics and politicians, had achieved
by the end of December 2000 the first draft of the Constitutional project
of the State of Palestine. It was published in February 2001.

This is the third draft, which has been compiled by amending and
reformulating the first and the second draft, having taken into
consideration comments and suggestions from Palestinian, Arab and
international legal experts, in addition to academics and personalities
from the civil society in Palestine and the Diaspora.

This third draft will be widely distributed to enable a greater number of
persons to study it and participate in improving the drafting thereof by
suggesting amendments, deletions or additions to obtain a valid draft that
would be presented to the Palestinian Central Council when conditions will
enable it to convene.

This draft was submitted and expounded to the Palestinian Central Committee
on March 9 2003. In response to the queries of the participants, Dr. Nabeel
Sha'ath, head of the drafting committee gave complete clarification. The
Council approved the draft and voiced appreciation for the work of the
committee, its experts and advisors. It extended gratitude to the
personalities and countries that participated in support of this project and
effort. It advised the committee to pursue its work and discuss with the
legal committee of the Central Council and other committees to discuss this
draft in view of its final discussion and approval at the next Central
Committee meeting.