Shimon Peres, the last major figure from Israel's founding generation, died earlier this week at the age of 93. He may also have been the last major Israeli political figure to truly understand Israel's national interest. That may seem to be a funny way to describe Peres. For some, both his admirers on the left and his fierce detractors on the right, he will be remembered as one of the visionary supporters of peace: an early advocate of peace with Jordan based on territorial compromise, a strong supporter of a regional peace to be achieved through the Madrid process in the early 1990s, and a prime mover on the Israeli side behind the Oslo Accords that established the Palestinian Authority.