And its only bloomed under our tender care.

Mark Twain -- Samuel Clemens -- took a tour of Palestine when it was under Ottoman rule in 1867. This is how he described that land.
He said: "A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

And from Ziff, The Rape of palestine, written in 1936:

"Fully 75% of the area in Jewish hands morever has not known the plough for centuries. The northern colonies in Galilee were built on land rendered impossible for life since roman times because of marsh and endemic disease. Tel Aviv was erected on sand dunes which were considered without monetary value. The great granary, the valley of Jezreel, now nestling so trim and green in the shining sun, wa sso deserted and pestilential when Jews bought it that it was said any bird trying to cross it would fall dead in its flight."