Johnny Attero wrote: I understand where you are coming from, but I think there is plenty of evidence for war. Accounts from both sides describe mass violence and sieges, as well as archeological evidence from Jerusalem and other sites. The military orders built castles, obviously military constructions, in the Judean desert. Mental gymnastics to explain away these references and features are more than wrong, they are unnecessary.
Battlefields are notoriously hard to recognise, some of the very recent world war sites have been given memorials but medieval battlefields leave little or no trace. If you visit Jerusalem you will find 'war evidence' but which war and when is not always clear. Arabs are always fighting each other.
For a culture with a propensity to create martyrs at the drop of a scimitar, you'd expect at least some martyrs' graves. There is a graveyard where mujaheddin are buried, alongside Christian burials. Multiple skirmishes over many years could merge into a wholesale war in written accounts.