According to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, her main mission is staffing the Israeli courts with those who share her worldview: conservative, religious and pro-settler judges. This became clear at the end of a pathetic Nov. 19 press conference in which she and Education Minister Naftali Bennett announced that they had no plans to quit the coalition. She ended her remarks by saying that she will attend a meeting of the Committee for the Appointment of Judges this Friday, though none of the journalists asked what she was planning to do next.

Shaked makes no effort to hide that she has sought to fill the courts — the Supreme Court in particular — with conservative and traditional justices. Her main goal is to pack the court so that it will not block the political right from annexing the West Bank when that becomes feasible. I hope that we never reach that point, and if we do, that the Supreme Court would oppose this clear violation of international law and of Israel’s international commitments.

Both Israeli society and Israeli democracy have already suffered severely from Shaked’s appointments. Last week, the Supreme Court adopted a ruling by the Great Rabbinical Court that denied a woman who had an extramarital affair her half of the apartment she shared with her husband. The ruling runs counter to the common practice of applying civil law to the division of assets in cases of divorce.

In Israel, only religious courts rule on marital status; only rabbinical courts can validate Jewish marriages or divorces. But divorcing couples can choose between a religious or civil court for the division of assets and the court approached first will rule in the case. Even if the case is treated wholly by a rabbinical court, the separation of assets must follow Israeli civil legislation.