popo

They are represented proprtionally. They make up 17% of the population and have 8% of the parliament. As shown in the links I gave, many Israeli Arabs vote outside one of the big 3 Arab parties. You do not need 17% of parliament to be Arab in order to say that they have a voice. Just like you do not need the US Congress to be 14% African American and 13% Latino and 4% Asian in order to say that they have a voice.

As a reference, the US House of Representatives currently has 37 African Americans (8.5% of the toal), Latinos have 19 Representatives (4%) and Asians have 4 (0.9%). So, we have 3 minority groups that are not represented proportionally in the US House.

Why?

1) not everyone votes along racial lines, just like in Israel
2) not all minorities vote, just like in Israel
3) it is impossible to have minorities represented as 1:1 ratio because of voting patterns. It will never happen in ANY country

Regarding your sencond point, I'm not sure if you're talking about Palestinians in the WB & Gaza or Israeli Arabs. Completely different sides of the coin. Yes, Israeli Arabs often face discrimination but that's life. Minorities everywhere, even in the US complain about it too. "White school districts get more funding than Black districts", etc. But Israeli Arabs have had success in the Israeli Supreme Court where they felt that they'd been wronged. I hope that one day they don't need that protection and that minorities everywhere face no racism but that isn't gonna happen.

But can you imagine if Iraqis or Afghanis made up 17% of the total US population? And now imagine this war going on for 50 years with major terrorist attacks on US soil occuring daily/weekly. Do you not think that the same problems would occur?

The Palestinians in the occupied territories are another story. The sooner they get their own country the better for everyone.

edited to add this link:

http://www.ethnicmajority.com/congress.htm