[r9etb]

And what agenda is that? Looking at the photos side by side, I don't see how one makes any political point more forcefully than the other. One of my favorite maxims is "never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence," and this seems like a good case for that.

I strongly disagree. It's not mere "incompetence" that the fakery shows a more dramatic amount of damage, over a wider area, than actually occurred.

The political point is perhaps not obvious when removed from the larger context of Hajj's fakery -- he's clearly trying to paint Israel as using excessive force. And the nice man is not alone in this: note, for example, today's backpeddling from claims of "40 killed" to "1 killed" in an Israeli attack.

I find it surprising that someone who paints himself as savvy to the ways and means of media manipulation should be unable to see this faked photo as part of a larger context.

[ReignOfError]

I strongly disagree. It's not mere "incompetence" that the fakery shows a more dramatic amount of damage, over a wider area, than actually occurred.

Your read on the original and the doctored photo differs from mine. Where's the "more dramatic amount of damage?" All I see in the doctored photo is a darker smoke cloud.