WATCH: Project X, Or Eternal Sunshine of the Palestinian Mind

Samer Bisharat, star of Oscar-nominated “Omar,” in Project X / YouTube
If you’ve ever seen the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” you’ll immediately be reminded of it after watching the newly released short film “Project X.” The basic plot is the same. Except instead of Jim Carrey trying to erase Kate Winslet from his memory, you get an 18-year-old Palestinian who’s having the memory of his girlfriend forcefully taken from him — by a team of Israeli doctors.
Why are the docs trying to rid the Palestinian protagonist of this girl? Because the memory of her keeps him from doing what they so desperately want him to do: enlist in the Israeli army.
The teen is approached earlier on by an Israeli army recruiter (trying really, really hard to sound like a native Arabic speaker — and failing), who tries to sell him on military service by promising it’ll “open a million doors.” In return for his service, he’ll get “a backbone that no one will mess with.” Also: “Land — land that you’ll own.” Imagine!
Still, the Palestinian resists. And because he resists, he ends up on an operating table, where Israeli doctors who specialize in “brain programming” are tasked with making him more amenable to the state’s demands. They succeed: Stripped of the memory of his girlfriend, who was always telling him that “this is not the way for us,” he ends up a soldier in uniform — with his own people’s blood on his hands.
This six-minute movie, directed by Nadim Hamed and produced by the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement in cooperation with Baladna, warrants a lot more than six minutes (or 600 words) of analysis. It’s interesting on a lot of levels. For one, it’s intriguing that a young woman plays the voice of reason. There’s the idea that love has the ability to safeguard people from betraying their authentic identity, their highest self, their truest beliefs. And there’s the striking confidence with which the Israeli recruiter dangles the promise of land in front of the protagonist — as if to say that Palestinians these days are so deprived of secure ownership over their land that nobody in their right mind could turn that offer down.
And then there’s the central takeaway of this didactic yet powerful film: the idea that young Palestinian citizens of Israel should utter a resounding “no” when encouraged to join the army.
That idea’s not coming out of nowhere. Although Palestinians aren’t required to serve in the army (excepting minority groups like the Druze), Israel has been stepping up its efforts to recruit the Christians among them, sending call-up notices to volunteer for service. In fact, the Project X film is part of a larger campaign, titled “I am an Arab; I will not serve,” that aims to discourage Palestinian youth from heeding these conscription notices.
Israel’s recruitment efforts are meeting with increasing resistance — not just among young Palestinians and Druze, but also, these days, among young Jews. As a growing number of Jewish conscientious objectors make their voices heard, you’ve got to wonder: Will they also take to film and other artistic media to discourage their friends from obeying Israel’s army summons? Is a Jewish version of Project X — Eternal Sunshine of the Sabra Mind — next on the horizon?
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.