BULL!
The Arabs didn't give much of a flying leap about the place until Israel came and made something of it in the last few decades. There wasn't anything to even support much of a population when the Jews got back to it. The promise land was left as an unwanted waste land.
“There wasn’t anything to even support much of a population when the
Jews got back to it. The promise land was left as an unwanted waste land.”
IIRC, after a tour of The Holy Land, Mark Twain generally asked “where are
the people?”...it was a desolate, under-populated no-wheres-ville.