>>509042900
it's a metaphor of how Judaism subsists on landed agricultural populations through trade which in Europe would have been Christians. in the Middle East it is desert so they can't really do agriculture so often it would be the Jews who did what little farming was available if Christians or Druze weren't around (like Yemeni Jews), there the Muslims were the Jews who survived off the Jews. You still see this in how they describe Israel as being the only farmland in the whole region but it's still a dustbowl compared to anywhere outside ME.