Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal launched the paper in Doha, replacing the group's original 1988 charter.
That document, which was written after Hamas was formed during the first Intifada, was anti-Semitic and proof for many critics that Hamas was nothing more than a terrorist organisation.
The new document took four years to draft and reflects a consensus of the group's top leadership.
Israel immediately dismissed the new charter as an effort to deceive the world.
The changes Hamas has made - at least on paper - are subtle but significant, even if they do not amount to much.
Hamas appears to now accept a Palestinian state, albeit a transitional one, along 1967 borders - a key plank of the Israel/Palestine peace process.
Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 six-day war and still occupies those territories.
In the new charter, Hamas also distances itself from the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation it grew out of.
This move is clearly designed to try and rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the Gulf Arab states and Egypt, which views the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.
There is also another dimension which feeds into the rebranding, and that is the power struggle Hamas has with the Palestinian Authority and Fatah.
President Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Donald Trump this week, and many believe the changes are a way of repositioning in an effort to undermine his already weakening authority.
By dropping the fiery language, Hamas is attempting to boost its appeal to the mainstream.
Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Fawzi Barhoum, admitted the new charter was about presenting a more moderate face.
"To the world, our message is: Hamas is not radical. We are a pragmatic and civilised movement. We do not hate the Jews. We only fight who occupies our lands and kills our people," he said.
It is of course possible that this new charter does become a stepping stone to ending the long-running conflict, but many in Israel are sceptical.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman, David Keyes, dismissed the new charter as smoke and mirrors.
"Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed," he said.
"They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians. This is the real Hamas."
Although Hamas's new charter has dropped its call for Israel's destruction, the Islamist group does not formally recognise the "Zionist entity" or its right to exist and still describes the country as a "colonial, racist state".
In a region where the struggle is viewed by many in cosmological terms, the acceptance of a transitional Palestinian state along 1967 borders maybe just an instrument in a wider battle to reclaim a "Palestine" for Palestinians from the West Bank of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
For Israel, Hamas is still the same violent extremist product - even if it is now selling itself in a different wrapper.
SKY News.
