Yes - more so geographers call it a stony desert but the unihabitable is in parts reversible if you can get water there. Agriculture is limited to things like hi-tech fish farming and flower and vegetable growing in hothouses. Very little field agriculture or livestock. In 1947 when the UN divided it up between the Jews and Arabs this Negev area was just about worthless.
So ... does this mean that the famed "6%" of land bought by Jews is arable and that only the remaining 14% was owned by private Arab citizens?
Of the remaing 14% a lot was classified as State Lands by the Ottomans and the British - (roughly 10% of the 14%) so by extrapolation it is probable that the most held by Arabs privately was 4% and that is still held by those same Arabs.
The seldom mentioned truth is that most (not all) of the so called refugees did not own any property and why they so easily picked themselves up and moved thinking they they would return after the Arab armies wiped out the Jews.
Those Arabs who did in fact own land or property very often made every effort to stay and many did so.Today they make up about 20% of Israels population. I'm not sure if I've got this right because these numbers might be from different times, where there were different borders, and it doesn't work out... but if it does, we are looking at pre WW1 breakdown as:
The above figures are post WWII. When figures are brought into the discussion one must be careful to place them in a time-frame. In particular comparing the situation before and after WWI as in the period pre WW1 population and land area figures may or may not include the area of Trans-Jordan. For example if you want to inflate the Arab numbers viz a viz Jews you include those on the East Bank which prior to WWI had about half the Arab population.
Jews owned 6%, and the other 94% was owned by either Arab private citizens or the Ottoman Empire. Now, private citizens rarely buy uninhabitable land, so presumably that 80% was under the control of the OE. Leaving 14% AT MOST to be owned by private Arab owners... so of the arable land, private Arab citizens owned about 72% at most....and in 1922, the land was split giving the Arabs 77%. Well, that seems very fair.
I don't wnat to rehash your figures which I hope will be somewhat clearer to you now. However, another point to consider though is that the Arabs had already received 78% of Palestine in 1922 when the British separated the East Bank from Palestine and didn't allow any Jews to live there.
Looks to me like the Arabs spit on a fair deal and have only themselves to blame for the ensuing mess.
You got it.