As U.S. President Barack Obama presses ahead with his Middle East peace initiatives, America's new tone and new modesty are going down well in the region. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is finding it hard to resist the pressure to compromise on the Palestinian question.

Whenever anyone calls his resourcefulness in difficult situations into question, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likes to recount an episode from his younger days. He was in his early twenties and was serving in the Israeli Defense Force's elite special forces unit Sayeret Matkal, which had been chosen to gather intelligence behind enemy lines and had a tough-as-nails reputation.

Netanyahu was leading a group of soldiers up a mountain when they suddenly found their path blocked by a giant boulder. With the side of the mountain to the left and a precipice to the right, the group's only real option was to turn around and abort the mission.

But, as Netanyahu likes to relate, he knew just what to do. Using shrubs that were growing out of the cliff, he made his way hand-over-hand around the obstacle, dangling over the abyss, and reached the path on the other side of the boulder.

Forty years later, Netanyahu is being called upon to use his imagination once again. This time, the challenges involve defusing the conflicts in the Middle East and the question of how Israel's relationship with its protective power, the United States, will develop under President Barack Obama. The president has asked him, in no uncertain terms, to accept the possibility of the establishment of a Palestinian state, as his predecessors did.