State committee (Arab Union)

A state committee (Arabic: لجنة الدولة lajnat ad-dawlah; pl. لجنات الدولة lajnāt ad-dawlah) is a type of executive department of the government of the Republic of Palestine.

Like ministries, state committees are directly subordinate to the Council of Ministers, the top executive body and Cabinet of the Prime Minister of Palestine; each state committee chairperson is thus a member of the Council of Ministers like the ministers who head particular ministries.

Unlike ministries, however, which are assigned administration of a well-defined responsibility of state or economy, state committees are instead defined by their adherence to a specific mission, which despite often involving a significant degree of independent activity can involve a similar degree of overlap with the jurisdictional areas of responsibility of ministries.

For example, the Ministry of Interior and the Joint Security Committee are both concerned with security and law enforcement, and both are chaired by a member of the Council of Ministers. The former, however, as a ministry, is given specific responsibilities which in this case involve public and internal state security, ranging from overseeing local governments to police, corrections, and security agencies. The important point here is that all these activities are specifically assigned to Ministry of Interior jurisdiction. The latter agency, on the other hand, being a state committee, instead of being given set jurisdictional boundaries is provided with a mission, which in this case is upholding national security. Therefore, in addition to the committee's many independent activities in pursuit of its mission, such as foreign intelligence and domestic counterintelligence, political security, etc., it also may overse and direct Ministry of Interior or Ministry of Defence activities (as well as those of other ministries and agencies) insofar as relevant to the fulfillment of its mission as a state committee.