The website of the Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera featured an op-ed on Thursday praising the perpetrators of last week’s terror attack at a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof. News of the post first broke in English on the blog “Elder of Ziyon.”

Part of the commentary, translated from the Arabic, read:

The daring operation carried out by two Palestinians in a Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem left a big impact and it will leave a big impact on the Palestinian scene for a period of time. It is clear that this operation comes in the context of the Zionist attacks on Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the day after the hanging of the Palestinian bus driver by Jewish settlers.

The operation carried symbolic importance in targeting the synagogue, in a clear message to the settlers and extremists of all varieties and types that the attack on the Arab holy sites would lead to attacks on synagogues and their holy places. Palestinians do not attack the sanctities of other religions, but they are ready to convey the message clearly to all those who abuse their sacred places. The operation also was clear in terms of courage and bravery, coming among a number of bold operations carried out by Palestinians in recent times against the Israelis, especially in the city of Jerusalem, but this operation was the most daring because it was done with primitive weapons. The media picked up that the Palestinians used the gun, but the most important weapons were knives and hatchets. It was the courage of the operation, done suddenly and without warning.

The author of the op-ed, Professor Abdel Sattar Qassem of An Najah University in Nablus, also wrote that the attack was not terror but “self-defense … to save the Palestinian people.”

An Najah University received unflattering attention in 2001 when it hosted an exhibit glorifying the deadly suicide bombing at a Sbarro’s restaurant in Jerusalem, which had occurred a few weeks earlier and claimed the lives of 15 people, including 7 children.

In July, during Israel’s operation against the terrorist organization Hamas, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) accused Al Jazeera’s Qatari owners of complicity in war crimes due to their funding of Hamas.

Al Jazeera was described in a leaked 2009 State Department document as “an informal tool of [the government of Qatar’s] foreign policy.”

In Qatar’s Rise and America’s Tortured Foreign Policy, which appeared in the August 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine, Jonathan Spyer described this dynamic:

Qatar’s support for Hamas is part of a broader regional policy of building a strategic partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood movement, of which Hamas is an offshoot. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the movement’s most famous and influential preacher, is a resident of the Qatari capital. His sermons, broadcast on Al-Jazeera from Qatar, replete with anti-Semitic hatred and loathing for Israel, are listened to by millions. Qatar supported the Muslim Brotherhood in its push for power in Egypt, and was a major financier of the Morsi government during its chaotic and disastrous year in power. Many Egyptian Brotherhood leaders have now found refuge in Qatar. The Emirate has also promoted militias supportive of Muslim Brotherhood-type ideology in the Syrian civil war, such as the Tawhid Brigade in Aleppo, and alongside Turkey, supported groups even more radical.

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