Gaza?
Gaza?Reuters

The Palestinian Authority (PA) official TV channel has launched a particularly factually indefensible ad campaign against the IDF, accusing it in Operation Protective Edge of committing "terror" comparable to the September 11, 2011 (9/11) World Trade Center attack.

The ad was aired several times on PA TV News during the past week according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which translated it. In the ad, a split screen shows the Al Qaeda terrorists ramming a plane into the iconic New York buildings, alongside the IDF airstrike last Monday on a 12-story Gaza building used by Hamas terrorists.

In the ad the words "Same Terror" appears on the screen as the buildings fall - the libelous charge does not stand up to even the most superficial inspection.

The Gaza building was used as an operations room for Hamas terrorists conducting a war on Israel, and therefore was hit as a valid military target. Likewise, the IDF warned all civilians in the building to evacuate before the strike, and as a result none were killed.

In contrast, the 9/11 attack consisted of a coordinated hijacking of planes in a deliberate attack on a purely civilian structure.

It goes without saying that the Al Qaeda terrorists did not warn the nearly 3,000 people, among them around 600 Jews, who were murdered in the attack to evacuate.

The latest televised propaganda comes at a time when the PA is stepping up its violent rhetoric.

Senior officials in PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, and in particular its "military wing," the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, have recently said they reached a "political decision" to support Arab terrorists "slaughtering" Jews living in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

They likewise have called for a full return to terrorism, declaring "open war" on the Jewish state and falsely claiming to have murdered 11,000 Israelis. Fatah also recently called for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel. The calls have been acted on in a recent surge of attacks by Fatah terrorists.

It is worth noting that Fatah's calls are in keeping with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) charter of 1968, which declares "armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine." Following the charter, the PLO and Fatah were defined internationally as terror organizations, a status which was removed during the 1993 Oslo Accords process.