Israeli rabbis and the Golan

Sources at the religious Israeli Shas movement have expressed their convictions that even if the spiritual leader of the movement, Obadia Yousev, agrees to give up the Golan and evacuate the Israeli settlements according to the Jewish law (which does not consider the Golan as part of ancient Israel), all partisans of the Shas movement will vote in the general referendum on this case against the agreement with Syria.

The sources told the Israeli Radio on Thursday that Rabbi Yousev opposes the idea of making the referendum requiring a majority of votes because this will be a hard blow to the peace process.

The sources added that if an initiative is proposed to cancel the referendum, Rabbi Yousev will ask the leader of the Shas movement not to oppose such a cancellation.