[nir]

I guess having lived all my life in the Middle East means I'm "indoctrinated" and thus unable to understand the situation here as well as someone who lives in, say, Iowa and read a few posts on Reddit.

But Wikipedia is open to us all:

Previous to the Arab armies invasion of Israel, it was a civil war between Jews and Arabs, with no clear. Jews lost %1 of their entire population in the 1948 war. Ultimately, the area that ended up becoming Israel contains about %20 Arabs. In the area that ended up under Arab control, no Jews were left. Arab nations then moved to deport nearly all their Jewish citizens. So maybe read up on what Ethnic Cleansing means while you're at it.