I seem to recall from one of my classes at college that there's no proof of the existence of King David - or rather, that the deeds attributed to him (fortresses and war-making etc) seemingly left no historical evidence (although this is contentious). However, there is a suggestion that the deeds of Omri (king of the Northern kingdom centred at Megiddo/Samaria) were co-opted for Judaism's golden boy, David, by the (Southern Kingdom's) writers of what later became the Old Testament. (A place where you can possibly see that David is rather a questionable historical figure, is where Goliath is killed twice - once by David and once by El-Hanan). Of course, had Judah (the southern kingdom) fallen before Israel (the Northern kingdom) - and there's contention about whether they ever were one kingdom to start with - the story might be very different.
But considering that the Northern kingdom was regarded by the south to have strayed from YHWH (Omri gets on the throne via murder - like so many of his predecessors and successors; his son, Ahab, and his wife Jezebel are notorious as the persecutors of YHWH's prophets (most notably Elijah)). So, would a lasting Northern Kingdom fill the "Canaanite Empire" mandate? Particularly if they were to conquer Sidon and Tyre next door, or try to conquer JUdah etc.?