I have very mixed feelings about this class. One the one hand, I found the class material really interesting. He requires textbooks for the class, but I never used them since he repeats the material in lecture. The only time you will need to complete the readings are if they're marked for a quiz. Quizzes are also really easy since the questions are pretty explicit in what they're asking.

The class focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East, beginning with the migration of European Jews around the 1800s and into the present. His lectures are very in-depth. I highly recommend copying all the notes he presents in lectures and adding in the details he mentions because there's a good chance that you'll need it for the midterm and final. For this quarter, the exams were open-note, so you were at a strong advantage if you took detailed notes throughout the quarter. For the midterm and final exams, you will want to show your knowledge about the class material with depth, so add as much detail as you can.

Although I found the class material interesting, he was very disorganized throughout the quarter. Lectures were posted towards the end of the week or the week after, which kept pushing our schedule back. He also changed the syllabus around towards the end because we ran out of time to complete all the materials. If you're interested in the material and can withstand the disorganization of the class, this might be it for you. Otherwise, I'd be careful if you're concerned about your grade throughout the quarter.

The material itself is interesting, but his lectures are dry and he is not very well organized. I think he definitely knows a lot and wants students to learn, but the lack of organization and maybe the online format due to covid made things worse. He was constantly behind on posting lectures and rarely stuck to his syllabus schedule. He graded pretty harshly on the midterm and when I submitted a midterm regrade request he told me to remind him to read it and he never ended up reading it. Answers for midterm and final exam have to be extremely detailed and pretty much perfect in order to get a high score.