The war began with the locals in 1947 right after the UN General Assembly voted on the Partition Plan which then was scheduled to go back to the Security Council. The surrounding Arab states sent irregular troops in to try and stop the Jewish Militias from taking over the so-called Arab Section. The Militia worked like your typical schoolyard bully. Push the geeks enough to get them to fight back and then cream them. (or kick them out of their village and then destroy it). Furthermore many Arabs (those that could) left before the war started and were still not allowed to return.
NO, the war started when the Arabs passed their resolution to end Isreal.
And the Jewish Militias formed to stop that.
Arabs led the sniper teams that started this shooting school children and women shoppers.
And those bully Jews objected to that and defended themselves.
How terrible of them.
They blockaded the Jews in Jerusalem with their Arab Liberation Army and death squads sent in from Egypt called the Army of the Holy War.
Facts sure are a ***** to you ideologues.
The entire Jewish population were under strict guidelines to stay put while the Arab militant murderers were given free passage to leaveif they wanted to.
And guess why they left? Because they knew that the British were going to support additional partitions where the Palestinian ARABS would be annexed by TransJordan.
And those were the folks that persecuted the Palestinians, their own Arab "brothers".
Same today, they hate the Palestinians second only to the Jews.
The upper and middle class Arabs are the ones that fled Jerusalem and surrounding areas. Why? They hate Palestinians and did not want to take the chance of them gaining ground and being equal to them.