BRITISH ECONOMIC INTERESTS IN PALESTINE IN THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES* The article is devoted to the economic aspects of British policy in Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: how interested were the British ruling circles in pursuing a policy in the Holy Land, or was this step caused by purely political and geostrategic considerations. The article analyzes the UK's involvement in railway construction in the Holy Land and in the modernization of Palestinian ports. Keywords: Palestine, economy of Palestine, British Empire, politics of the British Empire. Traditionally, European and North American researchers believe that the British policy towards Palestine was formed in 1917 after the publication of the Balfour Declaration, and economic policy was carried out only from 1922, when the Holy Land was officially transferred to the British mandate. In this connection, the question of the existence of British economic interests in Palestine prior to 1917 remains open: how much British ruling and business circles were interested in pursuing an economic policy in the Holy Land, or whether this step was caused solely by political and geostrategic considerations. To answer these questions, let us turn to the definition of the territorial borders of Palestine in the late 19th century and early 20th century. There was no such territorial unit in the Ottoman Empire. Until 1873, Palestine was part of the Syrian Governorate-General, which in 1867 was transformed into a vilayet1. In 1873, an administrative and territorial reform was carried out in the Ottoman Empire, during which a new administrative unit was formed-mutesarriflik. It was a sanjak of an ordinary vilayet, subordinate not to the Vali administration, but to the Turkish Ministry of the Interior. Since 1873, the Jerusalem Sanjak has also become such a mutesarriflik. It was bordered to the north by the Beirut Vilayet, to the east by the Jordan River by the Ma'an Sanjak of the Syrian Vilayet and ... Read more