Israel was conquered by the Romans and was under Rome even during the time of Jesus. Since the Jews were unwilling to bow down to Romans gods as they bow down only to "Jehovah" God, the Romans wanted to kill all the Jews. And under the Roman general Hadrian, the Romans destroyed the Temple at Jerusalem and other entire Israeli cities and drove out the Jews and renamed Judah and Samaria as Palestine just to spite the Jews whose greatest enemies were the Philistines. Only a few Jews remained and they mingled with the Arabs, Syrian, Jordanians. But there were always one Jewish leader or the other trying to set up an Israeli state for more that 2000 years. Only in 1948 their struggle became a reality and a small piece of land was declared as Israel.
The so called farmlands mentioned in your article were not farmlands at all. They were barren desert lands that were purchased over several years by the Jews since they wanted to return to their homeland someday and were willing to pay and buy lands that once belonged to them. The so called "Palestinians" sold the land because they saw no value in the desert land.
