During the last two decades of his life, Jean Genet (1910-86) stoppedwriting novels and plays. Instead he wrote non-fictional stories and essays, manyof with depicted Palestinian soldiers and refugees living in Jordan and Lebanon.In this article, Genet’s representation of Palestinians is discussed in theperspective of Edward Said’s orientalism theory. At first sight, the fact that Genetis a Westerner writing in French about a foreign people whose language he doesnot speak might suggest that he mouldsPalestinian reality in order to fit Westernthought and Western aesthetics, thereby producing orientalist discourse. However,rather than exploiting the East to strengthen Western identity, Genet uses Easternreality to undermine Western thought. It is concluded that Genet does not meetSaid’s criteria of orientalism since the Palestinians are situated at the centre of hisworld and occupy a privileged position that surpasses the interests of Westernpolitics, culture, and identity.