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Dear Alex,
I was happy to glance at your postscript, explaining your absence from active, comprehensive journalism, and glad to detect your return is attached to numerous articles of keen interest to the Greek-American community.
Frequently found next to her Cypriot friend and colleague, Consul-General Koula Sophianou, Ambassador Baltas was the consummate thoughtful representative: listening, advising, helping with bureaucratic matters, always with a ready smile, even when the political atmosphere would turn tense — as the recent Greek vote in UNESCO to raise the diplomatic profile of the Palestine Authority before a permanent agreement is reached with Israel and the PA.
Another glitch, in an other wise positive development of Greek-Israeli, and Greek-Jewish relations is the reluctance, thus far, for Greece — a nation that lost 87% of its Jews in the Shoa, and where rashes of anti-Semitism return — to clearly state that its vote in the United Nations General Assembly on November 29, 1947 (one of only 13 countries) against Resolution 181, the Mandate decision to establish Israel and an Arab state, was wrong, and should be rescinded! This bit of business was left for her successor, Evangelos Kyriakopoulos to pursue, and I hope he shall do with all deliberate speed, and before the resolution’s 70th anniversary in 2017!
Meanwhile, Anna and I join the throng wishing Ambassador Baltas new success as the envoy of Greece in Santiago, Chile. And, may the secular New Year 2012 bring us all health and happiness, delivery from economic stress, even a measure of prosperity, aims we can collectively cheer and hope to realize!
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