As a female Palestinian MP in Israel's Knesset, this activist has taken up the battle for rights on two fronts.

Haneen Zoubi has that most incongruous of job descriptions: a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament. She is also the first woman elected from an Arab party to a parliament increasingly dominated by right-wing Jewish men.

While women's rights advocates admit that Livni, who won a razor-thin primary against Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz on Wednesday, isn't what they would call a flag-waving feminist, they're convinced she carries her feminist credentials proudly - in her business-suit pocket. That Livni ran her Kadima primary campaign on security and economic issues, with almost no reference to explicitly feminist issues, was born out of necessity, the feminists assert, and they don't hold it against her.

While Livni appears to be the front-runner in today's vote, her bid to become Israel's second female prime minister -- Golda Meir held the post from 1969 to 1974 -- is hindered by doubts about her lack of military experience.