Morgan Freeman posted a Facebook picture of him posing in Israel. Photo: Facebook.

Actor Morgan Freeman was blasted by Israel-supporters this week for editing a photo of himself he posted on Facebook.

The ostensibly controversial picture shows the Shawshank Redemption actor smiling for the camera with the Jerusalem landscape behind him. He captioned the photo “Jerusalem, Israel” and added the hashtag “StoryofGod,” which is the name of a three-part series he hosts for the National Geographic Channel. Freeman, who was recently in Israel filming the series, made the image his Facebook profile picture on Tuesday.

The photo quickly drew massive attention from social media users who posted comments debating whether the city is a part of Israel or “Palestine.” Freeman responded by removing “Israel” from the caption and the image from the spot for his profile picture (though it can still be seen on his page).

The edited caption drew criticism, as well. One Facebook user wrote, “You are a sellout piece of garbage for removing Israel from your post. Would you do that to any other country? No? No respect for you.” Another said, “It is call [sic] JERUSALEM, ISRAEL!!!! Morgan Freeman stop being a coward!” Yet another wrote: “People are gonna hate & be offended, regardless, so you might as well post it the way you see it.”

The Facebook debate over the Holy City continued well into Thursday. “It legally is Palestine,” someone commented, while another posted, “I believe it’s called Jerusalem as in sounding like Jew who it belongs to.” Someone else wrote, “It legally belongs to Palestine, not Israel.” And a different user said, “Welcome to Israel! Jewish land for 3,000 years! Where Palestine never existed!”