*Norhayati Rafida Abdul Rahim, Ihab Ahmed Awais

Abstract:

In Malaysia, the boycott of Israeli products has become more prominent among Malaysian Muslims because of the Tufan al-Aqsa war in Palestine. However, the understanding of the boycott is still unclear whether it indicates an emotional expression against the act of Israel oppressing Gaza or is an act of collective identity of Malaysians, where by not joining in, it brings forth embarrassment in front of others. A quantitative approach was employed to measure the understanding of the war and its relation to collective identity and emotional expression towards the Tufan al Aqsa war in Palestine among Malaysian Muslims. The research instrument was a survey using Google Forms distributed via WhatsApp and email to 155 respondents. The data analysis involved descriptive and inferential statistics, namely t-test, Pearson correlation and Chi-square across age, gender, and education, respectively.

Keywords: Boycott, collective identity, emotional expressions, Tufan al-Aqsa, Palestine, Malaysia