1.   Barak has assured the settlers that many of their communities will remain under Israeli sovereignty after a peace agreement.

2.   By voting, the stateless Palestinians are asserting their claim to nascent sovereignty after nearly three decades of Israeli domination.

3.   The Jews of Israel, in particular, are learning how to re-fashion their own sovereignty after too many centuries of being imagined as dead.

4.   Implicitly, the ceremonies once again underline the fact that the reunited Germany has now fully recovered its sovereignty after decades of division through military might.