Sursock family
In 1872, the Ottoman Government sold Marj ibn Amir (Esdraelon Valley) to the Sursock family of Beirut. The Zionists began to show interest in buying the Jezreel Valley in 1891, but the Palestine Land Development Company (PLDC), a Zionist land purchasing agency, made its first purchases in 1910. In 1897, Theodore Herzl writes about the Sursock family in his diary, noting the onset of negotiations with the Jewish Colonisation Organization for the purchase of 97 villages in Palestine.