MK Meir Cohen (Yesh Atid) tried to get a law passed that would take away funding from educational institutions that are guilty of rejecting potential students based on their ethnic origin.

Cohen "expected" to at least get the support of Shas for the bill, if not also the support of UTJ. After all, the Haredi school system is among the worst offenders in this issue and many sefardi families in the Haredi community suffer from such discrimination and every year we hear the heartbreaking numbers of kids who have no school to go to simply because they are sefardi.

UTJ was not really expected to support the bill, as they do not fight for the little people. They tend to represent those who hold the power - the administrators of the institutions who are also usually the askanim of the community. UTJ has never fought against them, no matter how much they go against the instructions of the gedolim - any time the issue has come to the Knesset to possibly put an end to it, the UTJ MKs have not supported the victims.

Shas, on the other hand, does at least claim to fight for the weak, and at times they do. Their entire campaign for the last elections was predicated on that - their work on behalf of the "shkufim" - the transparent people, the little people - the people nobody else stands up for. Shas was expected to not oppose such a bill that was meant to protect the natural voters of Shas.

But they did.

Both UTJ and Shas opposed it, and not because it was a bad proposal, but because it was proposed by Yesh Atid. Shas was not going to oppose it but instead just leave the plenum and not be present for the voting. They were called back in when it seemed like the coalition might not have a majority without them, so they returned and voted against. MK Yigal Guetta even said afterwards that he voted against the bill but is embarrassed by it.

Not only that but UTJ is now threatening to "punish" Shas for considering not voting against the bill. UTJ is going to "reevaluate" its working relationship with Shas because of how Shas almost did not oppose the bill.

If only the people in charge would look out for, and work for, the people they are meant to be working for... that is, the people. not their honor, not their friends, but the people... if only..