Intellectual Stances:
A Reading into the Phenomenon of Blaming the Resistance!
(Translated)

Al-Rayah Newspaper - Issue 566 - 24/09/2025 CE
By: Dr. Ashraf Abu Ataya

The relationship with those who occupy Muslim lands and desecrate their sanctities, cannot be one of friendship, cooperation, and peace. Instead, it is a relationship of jihad, resistance, and defense. Allah (swt) says,

[وَاقْتُلُوهُمْ حَيْثُ ثَقِفْتُمُوهُمْ وَأَخْرِجُوهُم مِّنْ حَيْثُ أَخْرَجُوكُمْ]

“And kill them wherever you find them and expel them from where they expelled you” [TMQ Surah Al-Baqarah: 191]. This is an undisputed Islamic Shariah ruling. Yet today, we hear voices, within and outside the jamaa’ah (community) of Muslims, blaming the resistance and holding it responsible for the massacres committed by the occupier, as if the executioner, the kuffar, were innocent, and the victim, the Muslims, were guilty! This phenomenon is not merely a deviation in the intellectual and moral compass, but rather reflects complex emotional and political patterns that deserve explanation and understanding.

1.Emotional dimension: illusion of justice and anxiety relief

Some individuals try to explain the tragedy in a way that makes them feel that the world is “fair,” and that the West has values ​​other than materialism. They say, “If the resistance hadn’t done this, then that wouldn’t have happened.” This explanation gives them the illusion of control and emotional satisfaction, instead of facing the terrifying reality that the enemy is capable of brutality without limits and without justification.

Confronting a forceful occupation also creates tremendous emotional distress, with some people resorting to channeling their anger toward the nearest party, the resistance, because confronting it is less taxing, emotionally, than confronting the occupier itself. In moments of catastrophe, people seek a savior or a blamer to ease their anxiety in the face of the shock, terror, and futility.

2.The societal dimension: the accumulation of weakness and the mentality of the defeated.

Decades of occupation, siege, and Arab failure have created a societal pattern of normalization with weakness. Some people have come to believe that peace with the occupier and its legitimization of the occupation are better than paying the price of resistance! With prolonged occupation and brutality, a so-called “defeated mentality” emerges, where the enemy is viewed as an absolute, invincible force. This is what agent regimes in the lands of Muslims are trying to instill, shifting blame onto themselves, rather than their adversaries.

In an atmosphere of internal division, some find partisan and sectarian disputes a justification for holding the resistance responsible for the tragedy and genocide, rather than the occupation.

3.The media and political dimension: manufacturing the narrative and distorting the compass

The occupation’s massive media machine demonizes the resistance and armed movements, presenting them as the culprits causing woes in Gaza and the region. With the recurring bombing, killing, genocide, and horrific scenes, this narrative is even permeating some of the victims themselves.

Moreover, the occupation relies on a strategy of raising the societal cost of resistance. As destruction, killing, and displacement accumulate, domestic pressure on people to reject the option of Jihad increases. Here, the situation becomes not so much one of hatred for resistance and Jihad, as of an inability to bear the cost.

4.The pragmatic dimension: searching for immediate solutions.

There are also those who ideologically embrace the idea of ​​Jihad, but in practice, when they see the heavy price, they seek immediate solutions and immediate salvation by halting the bombing at any cost, even if this appears to be a rejection of resistance. These people do not deny the right to resist, but they prefer to address immediate pain, rather than cling to the long-term, costly option of liberation (tahrir), emancipation, and independence.

Conclusion: Between understanding and maintaining the compass

Analyzing this phenomenon does not mean justifying it, but rather attempting to understand it from its emotional, societal, and political perspectives. What is required of us is to maintain our intellectual and moral compass, guided by the Deen and its emanating Shariah rulings, and to adhere to the option of Jihad. The kafir occupier is primarily responsible for every crime, and the agent Sykes-Picot regimes are secondarily responsible for justifying their crimes, failing the people of Palestine, and preventing Muslim armies from supporting them. Resistance remains a natural option for liberation (tahrir) and a Shariah legal ruling, even as we discuss the resistance’s mistakes on the ground or politically, or the mistakes of the mujahideen and certain actions or positions. Understanding is necessary, analysis is essential, accountability is required, and critique is required for progress. However, harmony with the Islamic Aqeedah (doctrine), correct intellectual and moral stances, and a solid compass are more important, lest we fall into the trap of blaming the victim, and exonerating the executioner.