Pushing the envelope: Palestinian-American comedian Maysoon Zayid, the co-founder of the Arab-American comedy festival, takes it to the stage. Photo: Johnny Farraj

Arab-Americans are never far from the headlines, so they're playing it for laughs.

MAYSOON Zayid introduces her act by declaring she is a Palestinian Muslim virgin with cerebral palsy, and adds: "I just want you guys to know I am a virgin by choice … and that is my father's choice.

"My father has spent the majority of my life terrified that I will accidentally lose my virginity, so there's a list of activities I am not allowed to do: there is to be no horseback riding, not even on a carousel."

If the terror attacks of 9/11 were a tragic example of US foreign policy "blowback" — an unintended, unfortunate result — then the Arab-American comedy festival starting next weekend in New York may be the beginnings of Osama bin Laden's US cultural blowback.

Arab comics are intent on challenging stereotypes even as they laugh at themselves and their adopted US. Zayid is often heckled by an audience puzzled by the fact she is uncovered and wearing lipstick. Aron Kaydar, another comedian on the bill, jokes that he will name his first-born son Al — as in Al Kaydar.

Zayid and fellow comic Dean Obeidallah started the festival in 2003, when the Arab community was "under siege" and any coverage that did not portray Arabs as terrorists was worth celebrating. Obeidallah, a New Jersey native raised by Sicilian and Palestinian parents, says the attacks transformed how he was seen in his own country. "I go to bed September 10 white. I wake up September 11, I'm an Arab."

Initially, Arab-American comedians were wary of mocking themselves because their community was so widely criticised. Their humour has now evolved from pleas for understanding to a more mainstream comedy. "We have embraced the idea that we are a minority in America," Obeidallah says.

The title of the festival — Arabs Gone Wild — would have been unthinkable several years ago, Obeidallah says, but the community has become more confident. The festival will run over six nights off Broadway in the Zipper Theatre. One sketch suggests that if Fox News gave itself free rein, Arabs could be blamed for all misfortune in America, including extreme weather events, and hurricanes would be given exclusively Arabic names: "Look out, here comes Mustafa. Run for your life."

Before the attacks, many Arab-American comedians worked in ignorance of one another, but the country's response to 9/11 gave them a sense of community.

"When you're vilified, you need a voice and the most vilified people in the media right now are the Arabs," Zayid says.

She does not joke about 9/11, just as she does not joke about cancer. Nor does she do jokes about 72 virgins. Such jokes are not funny, and there are no 72 virgins anyway, she says. But she does joke about the prophet Muhammad marrying a woman 17 years his senior, comparing it to the marriage of actors Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.

"I'll push the envelope as far as I can, but if I am going to get someone killed I am not going to joke about it," Zayid says.

An example of the more mainstream humour he says has evolved over recent years is Obeidallah's routine where he relates the discomfort — and attempted polite reassurance — from other Americans on learning he is an Arab.

"Oh, you're an Arab," one says. "I love hummus."