Actor and comedian Waleed F Zuaiter (right) speaks to a reporter at a table with posters promoting the 6th Annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival at the Comix club in New York. (AFP)

Arab-American comedian Baha Khalil recalls the violent discipline meted out by his parents - then laughs his head off. Dad beat him with a belt, but mum had more typically Palestinian methods.

"My mother was throwing slippers at me," Khalil grinned, adding deadpan: "Palestinians like to throw things. Rocks, slippers..."

Perhaps the only thing trickier than being an Arab-American in the post-9/11 world is being an Arab-American comedian. And their numbers are growing.

This Sunday saw the start of New York's sixth annual Arab-American Comedy Festival and Khalil, a 28-year-old computer engineer, was one of two amateurs invited, for the first time, to join the pros on stage.

They were chosen on Wednesday at a competition christened, tongue in cheek, "Arabian Idol," and held at a backstreet studio on the southern tip of Manhattan.

Battling for laughs in front of friends and those too nervous to compete, nine young Arab New Yorkers revealed the funny - even painfully funny - side of life.

Favourites included parent and grandmother jokes, airport security gags, and edgy, sometimes crude riffs on the complexity of being both American and Arab.

Khalil recalled the traditional ululating women at New York weddings, sounding "like my old Nissan alarm."

Another Idol hopeful drew raucous and knowing laughter as he impersonated his mother's approaching footsteps, heralding a new beating or mouth washing.

Tahani Zahrey, 18, a first-year university student dressed in tight and trendy black, described the difficulties of being an Arab vegetarian.

Meanwhile, the second winner of a festival spot, Zaynab Asaadi, quipped that Westerners' alarm at her headscarf made her feel a different sort of freak. "We're like Ninjas."

After years on the sidelines, Arab-American jokesters are finally gaining acceptance, festival co-founder Dean Obeidallah says.

Americans "didn't even think Arabs could be funny, like genetically we lacked the capability," he told AFP. "I can't tell you how many times I was asked 'are you really an Arab?' at shows."

That's changed and, more than seven years from the 2001 terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, so have the jokes.

"It's moving from political to ethnic," said Obeidallah, sporting a green T-shirt marked "OBAMA."

"As we get further from 9/11, it's becoming more an unapologetic celebration."

Obeidallah, 39, and the other festival founder, Maysoon Zayid, 33, are accomplished comedians.

Much of their advice to the young hopefuls consisted of basic professional tips: use open-mike nights to win stage-time, study every word of jokes that seem to work, and practice, practice, practice.

But Zayid also addressed sensitive topics.

Like how, in an ultra-traditional family, do you break the news that you're doing stand-up comedy?

"I didn't tell them," Zayid joked. "I did it enough so that I was out of house and they thought I was stripping. Then I told them."

Zayid and Obeidallah, who have performed throughout the Middle East, including Palestinian towns like Ramallah and Bethlehem, encouraged would-be comedians to tackle political issues – but not to rant.

"Anger is great for comedy," Zayid said. "Comedy is a great platform to make a statement. But if you aren't funny, it doesn't work."

Zahrey, the fashionably dressed teenaged vegetarian, said after the try-out that comedy made her feel liberated.

"It's the best way to get my voice out. You can be yourself, you can wear what you want and say what you want. There are no rules," she said.

Laila Agrebi, 29, who works for a travel company, said the absurdity of comedy brought sense to her life.

"You get confused here because you have two cultures," she said. "It's a good way to clear the confusion, or not to clear the confusion but to say - that's how it is."