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Undoubtedly one of the most fascinating characters Israel has ever produced, Shimon Peres, may be the single most recognized and internationally acclaimed Israeli leader.

Born in Poland in 1923, Peres immigrated as a child, with his family, to Palestine, where he would become one of the founders of Kibbutz Alumot in the Jordan Valley. A David Ben-Gurion protégé, Peres has had an impressive run in Israeli politics.

In 1948 Peres was appointed head of naval services, and in 1959 he became a member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. During a political career spanning more than five decades, he has been minister of Immigrant Absorption, Transport and Communications, Information, Defense, Finance and Foreign Affairs — and prime minister (upon the death of Yitzhak Rabin). He was vice president of the Socialist International and is a Nobel laureate.

All of which is amazing, when one considers that Peres has lost every national election in which he has participated, both for prime minister and for president. These failures notwithstanding, his contributions to the state are legendary. Together with Ariel Sharon, he belongs to the generation of great statesmen that includes Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Menachem Begin.

But in the early 1990s, Peres had an idea — or, more accurately, a vision ~ that would cast the die leading to his own demise. In his book (aptly called) The New Middle East, Peres presented his view of Israel and its Arab neighbors closely intertwined in economic and bona fide political relations that would result in «visions of happiness and beauty, fife and peace,» as he so candidly put it.

Speaking to an audience in Paris in 1993, Peres said: «We envision a new Middle East where the skies will be free of missiles, the ground free of deserts, the water free of salt, its peoples free of violence and its children free of ignorance.» He became a strong advocate of Palestinian statehood and Israeli land withdrawal. To an audience in New York, Peres once said: «A successful Palestinian state is the greatest promise for peace and understanding. We want Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian farmers to work together, cultivating the land.»

Predictably, Peres’s rosy world view elicited ridicule, particularly in Israel. His political nemesis, Benjamin Netanyahu once referred condescendingly to his dovish counterpart as «Israel’s first astronaut.» Some of his critics called him hopelessly nave, but others saw him as a visionary ahead of his time. In fact, some of his speeches have had almost prophetic overtones. Even after the current murderous intifada erupted, Peres proclaimed: «We are at a watershed. Our region is going through a period of transition. The dark days are at an end, the shadows of its path are lengthening. The twilight of wars is still red with blood, yet its sunset is inevitable and imminent.» These could have been the words of Isaiah anticipating a future messianic age, as columnist Charles Krauthammer observed.

A man of the future Peres is. «I am bored with history,» he is fond of saying. Nothing could deter him; no one could rob him of his dream of a paradisiacal Middle East. Thus, Yasser Arafat’s endless calls for jihad, and green lights to terror during the days of the peace process, prompted hardly a peep from Peres. The New Middle East was translated into Arabic and distributed all over the region by the official Egyptian newspaper/publisher Al-Ahram, with an added introduction claiming that the book was a «Zionist plot.» Peres looked the other way.

In 1999, Hilal Khashan conducted a most comprehensive poll concerning Arab attitudes toward Israel, querying 1,600 Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians and Palestinians. More than 75 percent said that Peres was not interested in peace. Imperturbable, Peres went on with his dream.

It is sad to see a man who strives for peace rejected again and again. Even his enlightened European peers have abandoned him. In Belgium the legal committee of the Brussels parliament wants to prosecute him as a mass murderer, and in Sweden some citizens want the Nobel committee to strip Peres (not Arafat) of his prize.

Peres’s vision lies in tatters. His is not just the collapse of a political leader but the epic fall of a failed modern-day prophet. The Oslo fallacy, as with all false prophecies, has brought ruin upon both the prophet and his followers.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.