This article considers how the representation of Palestinians in popular imaging has shifted from the nineteenth century to the current day. It will utilise a mixture of popular media, including photography, portraiture, film, political posters and television. This longitudinal study charts the relationship of Orientalism and biblification as imaging systems – and their respective connotations of familiarity and otherness – in delineating questions of indigeneity and transgression as they pertain to the Palestinian body. It will analyse how biblification and Orientalism have operated to effect transformations in the projection and reception of the Palestinian body, both in western and Palestinian authored imagery. This analysis is underscored with questions of class, urban-rural divides and modernity in Palestine. Analysing the continuities, contestation and transformation shaping the imaging of the Palestinian body, this article focuses on the figures of the fellah, the fedayee and the infiltrator. It argues the Palestinian body was transformed from an indigenous, biblified vestige to an orientalised outsider status, with continuing impacts on contemporary representations. It considers how the historical contestation of Palestinian bodies has continued to impact contemporary popular narratives.