It says in this weeks parsha...

דברים נִצָּבִים פרק כט
כא: וְאָמַר הַדּוֹר הָאַחֲרוֹן, בְּנֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר יָקוּמוּ מֵאַחֲרֵיכֶם, וְהַנָּכְרִי, אֲשֶׁר יָבֹא מֵאֶרֶץ רְחוֹקָה; וְרָאוּ אֶת-מַכּוֹת הָאָרֶץ הַהִוא, וְאֶת-
תַּחֲלֻאֶיהָ, אֲשֶׁר-חִלָּה יְהוָה, בָּהּ. כב: גָּפְרִית וָמֶלַח, שְׂרֵפָה כָל-אַרְצָהּ--לֹא תִזָּרַע וְלֹא תַצְמִחַ, וְלֹא-יַעֲלֶה בָהּ כָּל-עֵשֶׂב

Deu 29:22 the last generation will say of your children that shall rise up after you, and the gentile that shall come from a far land (saying), when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it.
Deu 29:23 [that] the whole land thereof [is] brimstone, and salt, [and] burning, [that] it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein...

Mark Twain,visited Israel in 1867, described it as:

“ ...[a] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over
wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse....A desolation is here that not even
imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action....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 the worthless soil, had almost
deserted the country.”

-Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad. London: 1881 (New American Library, 1997).

In 1913, the British Royal Commission reported:

"The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts ... no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached Yabna village.... The ploughs used were of wood.... The yields were very poor........ The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert.... The villages in this area were few and thinly populated.."

Lewis French, Director of Development for the British Government, in 1931:

"We found it inhabited largely by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered severely from the prevalent malaria.... Large areas ... were uncultivated.... There was little public security, and the fellahin's lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbors, the Bedouin."

-amshinover:if you have nothing nice to say, say it here