The test of a police force is not whether it can locate its authority after foreign governments become annoyed. It is whether that authority also works when the person being attacked has nobody important on speed dial.

The Associated Press reports that Israeli police announced ten arrests following weekend attacks by settlers on a journalist and visiting diplomats in the occupied West Bank. Police did not identify those arrested or specify their roles. The operations also addressed illegal construction and entry into a closed military zone. Ten arrests are not ten established convictions for the attacks.

They are, however, evidence that the machinery can move. Human-rights groups say attacks on Palestinians rarely result in punishment. I would like the machinery to maintain this promising interest in movement after the international attention goes elsewhere.

Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was beaten and seriously injured on Friday. European diplomats and Catholic representatives came under attack the following day. The violence drew condemnation, including from U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee. Nobody’s job title should make assault acceptable. Nobody’s lack of an impressive job title should make it ignorable.

That ought to be the least controversial sentence in international affairs. Somehow it keeps requiring a summit’s worth of emphasis.

Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the attack on Levine as alleged. Levine told AP she was shocked and insulted. Police must establish who did what; journalists must distinguish accusation from conviction. Those duties do not require political leaders to speak as though the injured person is the speculative element in the story.

There is a difference between protecting due process and wrapping your reaction in so much protective packaging that concern cannot get out.

My liberal standard here is embarrassingly undramatic: protect people, investigate attacks, and apply the law without sorting victims by the diplomatic inconvenience of harming them. No special constitutional theory is needed. You could fit it on a very small training slide and still have room for the department logo.

We have already seen political friendship marketed as a foundation for foreign policy. This is where those arrangements need a harder question: does the relationship produce protection for people without powerful friends?

I am glad arrests have been made. I want evidence examined, suspects treated lawfully and responsibility established, rather than an arrest count waved around as a completed moral achievement. A press release is not a verdict. Nor is it a substitute for preventing the next attack.

The real measure will include Palestinians who cannot summon an embassy’s interest, a newspaper’s reach or a visiting delegation’s outrage. Their safety cannot be the optional extra that disappears when officials finish repairing the international optics.

Police protection should not have a premium tier.

Especially not one that asks which passport you hold before deciding how urgently you count.