It is refreshing to read the interview of Jeremy Ben-Ami ’84 (A Moment With, Oct. 7), the founder of J Street, a lobbying group 180 degrees opposite to the Israel lobby, which is the most powerful next to the N.R.A. in Washington. In this interview, he is right on that there will be no peace in the Near East until the Palestinian situation is settled. As it stands now, our foreign policy inexorably is tied to the power of the Israeli lobby (see “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by J.J. Mearsheimer, University of Chicago, and S.M. Walt, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, London Review of Books , March 23, 2006, and online at www.lrb.co.uk).

This interview, coming from a Princeton graduate with a father who fought for Israel’s independence and who has lived in Israel himself, is rock solid, and no one can call him anti-Semitic. It is refreshing to know that there are many voices within Israel who agree with him. lt also is refreshing to know that our president wants to see Palestine a sovereign nation, just as President Truman declared Israel overnight in 1947.

Herman F. Froeb ’46