The British financed much of it in the late 1850's and early pre-ww I era; they wanted a source of fruits and other ag products closer to home. It wasn't 'all Jews all the time'. Most of the Russian Aliyahs were poor people, not Rothschildes and Warburgs. Much of the 'Agricultural Revolution' gains came from the Dutch, English, and Spaniards between the 1500's and 20th Century, not to mention the Christian monasteries.
19th Century, after the Civil War with Egypt ended ...
Alexander Schölch’s “European Penetration and the Economic Development of Palestine, 1856-1882,” makes a number of interesting points. Foremost among them is Palestine’s remarkable economic upswing prior to the beginning of substantial European colonization in 1882. Palestine’s agricultural production and import-export trade activity grew, as did its towns and urban production. Much of this growth was a response to increasing European interest in the country. But European demand is not the full explanation, since internal Ottoman markets (including Egypt) also stimulated production of Palestinian agricultural and manufactured goods. Schölch calculates that Palestine had a trade surplus in most of the 1856-1882 period, counting foreign and intra-Ottoman trade together.
Palestine was being integrated into the world economy in these years. For instance, cotton production greatly expanded in the late 1850s and early 1860s when cotton prices rose and supplies to Europe from North America were interrupted by the US civil war. Two structural changes which this integration brought about were the creation of a commercial bourgeoisie linked to trade with Europe, and the creation of large areas of landed property. The coastal regions, including the country’s ports and much of its best land, were most affected by these developments. But Schölch argues that the Palestinian economy was not peripheralized in the period up to 1882. The basic structures of Palestinian economic life did not change, as artisanal crafts continued to flourish and agriculture remained diverse and flexible.
Schölch marshals data from published and archival sources, including German and Austrian diplomatic archives. His clear presentation and careful analysis of this information are commendable. “European Penetration” is a good example of the kind of basic research which needs to be done in the field of nineteenth-century Middle East economic history.
Roger Owen, ed., Studies in the Economic and Social History of Palestine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982).
merip.org
The first 'Aliyahs', from Russia, had an European export market to sell to.