As a response to antisemitic stereotypes of Jews as weak and brainy, Zionism wanted Jews to develop their muscles instead. It was a useful call that coincided with the need to literally build the Jewish home in Palestine from the ground up. The agricultural development of land and the construction of villages and towns on it provided ample opportunities for Jews to become the kind of muscular Jews Zionism fantasized about. Later, when the Arab resistance to Jewish settlement grew, Jewish farmers developed into soldiers as well and completed the transformation of Jews.