If I'm not mistaken, and JEB, correct me if I'm wrong, when the UN created Israel, it also offered the Palestians a state, but the Arabs were SO against a homeland for the Jews that they rejected a homeland for the Palestinians, too.
So in order to try to screw the Jews, they screwed the Palestinians as well, and have continued to do so since then. The Arab nations scared the poor Palestinians into thinking they'd all be murdered in their beds by the evil Jews, so they fled their homes. Unfortunately, those same Arabs refused to take them into their countries, confining them to the Gaza, and built refugee camps for them, leaving them in squalor in order to raise a generation of terrorists bent on Israel's destruction.
The palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
[Golda Meir, I think]
:-)
There were no such thing as Palestinian Arabs. They were considered first, Ottomans, but more locally as Syrians.
During World War I, the British promised both the Jews and the Arabs their own independence. They were given the Mandate, Zionism took hold, then the British, believing the Arabs were the more natural allies (oil and the Suez Canal) worked against the Jews to the benefit of the Arabs.
Therefore, when UN 181 came (the partition) it was rejected because of the Islamic mindset. No to Jewish domination. So, they fought. The Palestinians were not organized so, the other "countries" fought against the Jews.
The war increased the Jewish presence in the land.
Some of the Arabs left because of Arab scare tactics, some left because the local effendis were the first to depart and left a leadership vacuum, and some left because the Haganah was very effective at their own scare tactics.
Now, the Palestinians are totally used as a political means to an end. They have one purpose. To drive Israel from the land. It is working.