The Ottoman Empire and the Land Reform Act of 1858

The forced settlement of arab nomads ensured that virtually all of palestine had been cultivated by the middle of the nineteenth century. In 18 58, the ottoman empire passed a land reform act, privatizing most of the land in palestine. This led to many unscrupulous people accumulating huge tracts of land and to many other simple peasants who wouldn't have remotely known how to navigate the bureaucracy any case.