"It's not possible to credibly claim that the Arabs in surrounding countries started a conflict that had already been underway in the form of the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands non-Jewish Palestinians by Jews, using terrorism and outright massacres, and taking over Arab cities and villages for several months before Israel declared its independence. I know people like to try to make it look like the conflict started after Israel declared its independence, but that has been thoroughly disproven"

No, it started in 1923 or so, as has been pointed out repeatedly.