Challenging the parliament's standing

The debate exploded in the wake of a sharp controversy that erupted during the model parliament’s regional workshop in Nablus to discuss personal status law in March 1998. At that meeting, a prominent shaykh who heads the West Bank shari'a appeal court, Shaykh Bitawi, challenged the parliament’s right to address personal status law at all, thus raising public questions about the right of in­dividuals, especially secular women, to debate fundamental aspects of religion and law.

continued dialogue, the Islamist attack was vehemently of a different nature. In the aftermath of the parliament, the religious establishment was deeply concerned with affirming its own religious authority, but also was open to addressing prob­lems in the fair implementation of shari'a law and considering the contours of a new unified Palestinian family law.