The rivalry that presaged the world’s most tenacious conflict As the Arab -Israeli conflict continues to plague the Middle East, historian Ronald Florence offers extraordinary new insights on its origins. This is the story of T. E. Lawrence, the young British officer who became famous around the world as Lawrence of Arabia, Aaron Aaronsohn, an agronomist from Palestine, and the antagonism that divided them over the fate of the dying Ottoman Empire during World War I—a clash of visions that set Arab nationalism and Zionism on a direct collision course that reverberates to this day.