On September 17, Tzipora "Tzipi" Livni was elected to head Israel's ruling Kadima Party, succeeding Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.  Olmert resigned as party leader after an official investigative commission accused him of "serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence" during Israel's war with Hezbollah in 2006.

If Livni is able to establish a ruling coalition in the Knesset within 42 days... the deadline being October 29, just six days before the U.S. elections... she will become Israel's first female prime minister since Golda Meir led Israel from March 1969 until June 1974.

What is significant from the American perspective is that Livni's resume very much resembles that of Governor Sarah Palin.  At 50, she is just six years older than Palin.  However, while Palin has served sixteen years in public office, Livni has served just nine years.  Livni also served from 1976 to 1979 as a lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and later worked for the Israeli Mossad, stationed in Paris.  In 1983, she returned to Israel and enrolled at Bar Ilan University.  After completing her legal studies she worked in private practice for ten years.  She is married to an accountant, Naftali Spitzer, and has two children, Omri and Yuval. 

In 1999, at age 41, Livni was elected to her first term in the Israeli Knesset as a member of the Likud Party.  Two years later, in 2001, she was appointed Minister of Regional Cooperation.  In the following four years she served as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Minister of Immigrant Absorption, Minister of Housing and Construction, and as Minister of Justice.  A highly popular figure in Israel, Livni received the Abirat Ha-Shilton ("Quality of Governance") award for 2004.
 
In November 2005, Livni followed Prime Minister Sharon and his chief deputy, Ehud Olmert, as they left the Likud Party and formed the Kadima Party.  She was subsequently named Foreign Minister in March 2006.
 
Like Sarah Palin, Livni earned a reputation as a reformer.  On May 2, 2007, following the publication of the Winograd Commission's interim report, which was highly critical of her Kadima ally, Ehud Olmert, she called on him to resign as party leader and Prime Minister.  Olmert agreed not to stand for re-election as Kadima's leader, and Livni won the subsequent Kadima leadership election.
 
In 1992, at age 28, Palin was elected to the Wasilla city council, and one year after winning a second term in 1996 she left the council to run for mayor of Wasilla.  In that campaign she ran on a platform of eliminating wasteful spending and cutting taxes, defeating a three-term incumbent mayor.  Palin quickly established a reputation as a reformer and a cost-cutter.  She eliminated the position of museum director, moved the media relations function to the mayor's office, hired a professional city administrator, cut property taxes by 75%, eliminated personal property and business inventory taxes, and reduced her own salary by six percent.
 
In 2002, Palin ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, finishing second in a five-way GOP primary.  The following year Governor Frank Murkowski appointed Palin to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.  Palin chaired the Commission beginning in 2003, and served as Ethics Supervisor.
 
She resigned from the Commission in January 2004, protesting what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Republican members.  After resigning, she filed a formal complaint against Commission member Randy Ruedrich, the chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, accusing him of doing work for the party on public time and of working closely with a company he was supposed to be regulating.  She also filed a complaint against former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, accusing him of having a financial conflict of interest.  Ruedrich and Renkes both resigned and Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.
 
In 2006, running on a clean-government platform, Palin defeated incumbent Republican Governor Frank Murkowski in the GOP primary.   In the General Election, despite being outspent by her Democratic opponent, former governor Tony Knowles, she became Alaska's first female governor... at age 42, the youngest governor in Alaska history.
 
In March 2007, Palin proposed the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) to encourage the construction of a natural gas pipeline from the Alaska North Slope, through Canada, to the Lower 48 states.  In August 2008, Palin signed a bill awarding TransCanada Pipelines, Ltd.  $500 million in seed money and a license to build and operate the $26 billion pipeline.
 
In 2007, Palin visited Alaska National Guard troops at bases on the Kuwait-Iraq border.  Then, on her return trip to the U.S., she did what Barack Obama refused to do following his 2008 fact-finding trip to Iraq... she visited injured wounded U.S. soldiers in a hospital in Germany.
 
Some may think of Tzipi Livni as Israel's Sarah Palin, while others may see Sarah Palin as America's Tzipi Livni.  Either way, it is clear that the Israelis, living as they do under constant threat of annihilation by radical Arab neighbors, have no fear of placing their security in the hands of a capable woman with a strong record of accomplishment.  With just six weeks to go before the U.S. presidential elections, the American people have an opportunity to demonstrate that they too are willing to entrust a talented and immensely capable women with great responsibility.
  
Livni's election as leader of Israel's Kadima Party, and her subsequent elevation to the post of Prime Minister, just days before the U.S. General Election, should serve to remove any lingering doubts among some American voters that Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as Vice President of the United States.  If Livni is able to form a ruling coalition by October 29, it will be Israel's "October surprise" for the American electorate.