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“Ayman has systematically provided biased reporting for NBC over the years, with his journalism frequently shown to be misleading and inaccurate under scrutiny,” the Change.org petition reads.
Bassel Sidar, 19, was shot dead by Israeli Border Police in Jerusalem after a failed stabbing attack on Oct. 14.
Mohyeldin, who was reporting live from the scene immediately after the incident, said on the air that he hadn’t seen any sign of an attack.
“He did not look to be particularly armed. Again, that was confirmed by the fact that the police ultimately removed his clothes,” Moheyldin said. “[The police] didn’t find any explosive devices on him. I was trying to keep an eye to see if they were taking anything off of his body perhaps. If they took a gun … there was no gun that was visible.
“At one point, we can clearly see from where we were standing, from where his body was lying, his hands were open and both of his hands did not have knife,” he added, without the benefit of the studio’s freeze-frame video.
Anchor Jose Diaz-Balart corrected Mohyeldin, who couldn’t see a picture of the 19-year-old terrorist that appeared via a split screen, saying: “But in the video that we have … we can clearly see the man in camouflage tee-shirt and pants with what appears to be at least in his right hand, a knife.”
Mohyeldin then backtracked, explaining, “the point I was trying to make was that when they flipped the body over … it was at that point that his hands were empty.”
A video of Mohyeldin’s report went viral and his name quickly trended on social media, as morning shows in Israel covered the report to discuss whether or not it was unfair.
Israel has been rocked by a string of knife and gun attacks throughout October. Media coverage of the attacks has proven to be tricky with some outlets demonstrating a certain bias as they focused on the killing of the attackers rather than the attacks themselves.
After a Palestinian man went on a stabbing spree in Jerusalem, killing two men and injuring a mother and her toddler earlier this month, Al Jazeera went with the headline: “Palestinian shot dead after fatal stabbing in Jerusalem; 2 Israeli victims also killed.”
The publication later changed the headline to: “Two Israelis killed in stabbing attack in Jerusalem” after being criticized.
Covering the same story, BBC went with the headline: “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two.”
Mohyeldin, an Egyptian-American journalist working for NBC, has previously worked for Al Jazeera and CNN. He’s come under fire in the past for criticizing the U.S. over its refusal to recognize Hamas and for not doing enough to rein in Israel’s military. In January, he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was the subject of the film “American Sniper,” had “racist” tendencies and went on “killing sprees in Iraq on assignment.”
The calls for Mohyeldin to be fired come as MSNBC is dealing with the fallout over a recent broadcast that used maps that suggested Israel stole land from the Palestinians.
A representative for NBC declined to comment.
Watch Mohyeldin’s live report from Jerusalem here.