A Facebook campaign to have NBC news reporter Ayman Mohyeldin fired amid claims of bias against Israel has garnered broad support among Israelis.
The campaign is focusing on a recent report in which Mohyeldin erroneously asserted that Israeli security forces had shot dead an unarmed Palestinian.
The “Good Guys” Facebook group published a video last week in which dozens of Israelis called for Mohyeldin to be dismissed. Many of those featured in the video held up signs reading “Fire the liar,” and those behind the clip encouraged others to share on social media pictures of themselves with similar banners to show their support for Mohyeldin’s removal.
Organizers also promised to broadcast a video featuring the banner-touting protesters on a large screen in New York’s Times Square in two weeks’ time.
By Tuesday afternoon, the video had been shared over 13,000 times on Facebook.
Under the hashtag #FireTheLiar, the petitioners drew particular attention to an incident in which Mohyeldin reported live the aftermath of the October 14 shooting of a Palestinian as he tried to stab a border policemen outside the Damascus Gate of the Old City in Jerusalem.
During the broadcast Mohyeldin claimed the dead man had nothing in his hands, but news anchor Jose Diaz-Balart, back in the studio, immediately corrected Mohyeldin and pointed to video footage clearly showing the Palestinian holding a knife. The security forces shot the attacker dead before he was able to injure anyone.
The incident caused outrage on social media websites, with many calling for Mohyeldin’s employment to be terminated.
In October, another online petition calling for Mohyeldin to be fired over the stabbing report gained some 30,000 signatures.
