ARABIAN NIGHTS, SERIOUSLY FUNNY

Dean Obeidallah wants everyone to understand that Arabs can be hilarious.

"Common people don't think that Arabs have the genetic capability to be funny," says Obeidallah, a half-Palestinian, half-Italian, American-born comedian. "We wanted the media to write things about Arab Americans beyond terrorism, war, and violence."

The fourth annual Arab-American Comedy Festival, which will run in New York from Nov. 14 to Nov. 19, was founded in 2003 by Obeidallah and his comedian friend Maysoon Zayid in an attempt to shatter negative stereotypes that have pervaded post-Sept. 11 media.

The festival, which began as a three-day blend of standup and sketch comedy, was widely successful among diverse audiences and sold out the past two years. The show this year has been expanded to six days and spans three venues: the Gotham Comedy Club, Theater for the New City, and Two Boots Pioneer Theater beginning Tue., Nov. 14.

The event features some 50 Arab-American comics, writers, and artists who have roots in places like Egypt, Syria, and the Palestinian territories in Israel. What do they joke about? Themselves, mostly, with some familiar jabs at American culture and George Bush.

"It's funny in the same way anything in America is funny," Obeidallah says, "This isn't Arabian Idol. Most of us were born here."

One anticipated sketch is a follow-up to the 2005 "How to Be an Arab in Five Easy Lessons" (which included tips like "Wear a shirt with four buttons open and a gold chain"). The new skit is "How to Be an American in Five Easy Lessons," hosted by two naive Arab immigrants who aren't so familiar with the pop culture of their new home.

A more pointed political sketch is a commercial parody for free phone calls to the Middle East. There's a catch & the sponsor is the Department of Homeland Security.

Such jokes are fairly par for the standup circuit, but it's a different matter when the people doing the bits have names such as Aria Tarraf and Ahmed Ahmed. Then, suddenly, the troupe is breaking new ground and crossing comedic borders.

"We've felt confined," says Obeidallah. "Arabs are under certain constraints in comedy. But we have every right to make fun of Americans, just like any other group."

The Arab-American Comedy festival was inspired by what Obeidallah terms "an under-siege feeling." Sharp-edged Arab-American comedians have faced considerable problems in the past, too often tagged as menacing rather than amusing. In 2002, for example, Palestinian comic-columnist Ray Hananian was expelled from Zanie's Comedy Club in Chicago because his ethnic background made the other featured comedian uncomfortable.

Obeidallah, 36, remembers a time when Arabs weren't considered the enemy, and when they were unfettered by current events. It has changed quickly, from one generation to the next. Obeidallah's father, Abdul, who died before Sept. 11, rarely experienced racism in America.

"Growing up in Lodi, N.J., people didn't know much about Arabs," Obeidallah says. "Everyone was more curious than hateful."

Obeidallah graduated from Fordham Law School and became, by his own evaluation, a "mediocre" litigation attorney for about five years. Then he took a stab at the New Jersey Bar's funniest lawyer contest in 1993.

"I didn't win, but from then on, that was that," he says. "I was always the funny guy around the office, but after the contest, I started doing open mikes and bookings and eventually gave up law."

Since then, Obeidallah has appeared all over New York and the Middle East on TV, radio, and in clubs. He and Zayid have framed their comedy festival into an original form of activism.

"We're providing a new pipeline and helping Arab comedians build their careers," he says. "And as far as I'm concerned, if there are Arabs on TV doing something besides bombing, we've already made a difference."