Bingo. I think you're exactly right. It's also worth noting that some people jump a generation ahead to Jacob and Esau. They claim Esau to be the "father" of all Arabs and Jacob the "father" of all Jews; they then claim that Jacob's title to the inheritance given him by his father is invalid due to two events: First, Jacob pulled his now infamous trick of putting animal fur on his arms to make his blind old father Isaac believe that he was his hairy brother Esau, and thus received the inheritance (including the land given to Israel by God) that was rightfully Esau's. The second event is the barter in which a hungry Esau traded his inheritance to Jacob in exchange for a bowl of soup.
IMHO, the key thing to remember about all of this is that despite these events, God reaffirmed that the Abrahamic covenant was extended through Isaac and Jacob, and this reaffirmation came AFTER the above events. This settled the issue with utter finality. Yes, Jacob behaved dishonestly, but God did not strip the inheritance from him; the land belongs to Israel, period. One could also make the case that this is a beautiful parallel to the larger picture of grace: We sin, but He loves us and guarantees our salvation through his Son anyway.
MM
I would go one step further.
I have always thought that Islam, as a religion, had its roots in Ishmael (Mohammed 's ancestor) still trying to be Isaac (Israel).
I have always thought that the parallels go back to Lucifer wanting to be God.
We are dealing with deep spiritual forces here, not that anyone in the MSM has the depth to understand such things.