Rising from the ashes of September 11 and the subsequent racial backlash against people of Middle Eastern descent, the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival has used sharp-tongued humour as a weapon against discrimination.

At Manhattan's previous gatherings of Arab comics, the former president George W. Bush provided fertile ground for gags attacking racial profiling, undercover CIA agents sneaking into mosques and the US-led invasion of Iraq.

But the sixth annual festival will begin on Sunday against the backdrop of a Muslim-friendly president, Barack Obama, the closure of Guantanamo Bay and US foreign policy of engagement.

Dean Obeidallah, Maysoon Zayid and Waleed Zuaiter promote the Arab-American Comedy Festival. Michael Falco for The National

In this revamped political landscape, performers are rewriting their scripts and this year's festival poster depicts a grinning camel in the style of Mr Obama's campaign posters above the catchphrase "Yes Arabs Can".

"To me, Bush was amazing - he was the greatest writer of comedy we ever had," said Dean Obeidallah, the festival's co-founder. "There is a different tone in America now with President Obama and our community feels less under siege, but we'll still be making jabs at him."

Obeidallah, of mixed Palestinian and Italian heritage, said the festival will likely see comics drop their "Arab Woody Allen" persecution complex and crack more gags about the idiosyncrasies of Arab culture.

"Just like any other ethnic group, you can talk about your heritage and culture in a way that everybody understands. Everybody knows the crazy mother and dad off the boat, it's the immigrant experience."

More than 50 comedians will grace the stage of Comix Comedy Club on the Lower West Side, telling jokes for five nights about overbearing Arab family life rather than about being suspected of plotting terrorist attacks.

Performers include Obeidallah, from Axis of Evil, which was a hit on the Comedy Central network, and Maysoon Zayid, who appeared last year in the Israeli special forces farce, You Don't Mess With the Zohan.

Arab-American actors have long bemoaned being typecast as extremists or sleeper cell agents in such action shows as 24, but Obeidallah said he hopes the festival will push back barriers into the entertainment industry.

"This is the only way to change our image in Hollywood - to get involved personally as producers, writers directors and actors," he said. "We can't expect others to change the image for us; we want to be the ones to do it accurately."

The festival's growth since "humble beginnings" in 2003 has seen Arab-American comics take their material back to the Middle East and export the US stand-up tradition to their brethren.

A series of small-scale events mushroomed into sold-out shows in 1,000-seat venues, with the Axis of Evil tour to such cities as Beirut, Dubai, Cairo and Kuwait City marking a watershed for Arab-American comedy.

The Amman Stand-Up Comedy Festival, organised by Obeidallah, entertained more than 4,000 Jordanians in December and is earmarked to become an annual feature on the capital city's calendar.

"Before there really was no comedy scene in the Middle East and we've seen it being born," said Zayid, of Palestinian heritage. "The first time I performed in Palestine, people had no idea what I was doing and it was a completely new thing but the world is getting brought together by YouTube and Facebook and this has affected comedy in the Middle East."

The comics note, however, that transplanting the US stand-up style back to the Arab world involves the careful excision from their routines of sexual innuendo, heresy and jibing of heads of state.

And even with recent developments in the United States and across the Middle East, Zayid said this year's festival will not shirk away from the serious issues that continue to dog Arab-Americans.

"Our community is not out of the woods. Obama was elected, but a rainbow didn't suddenly appear over the Middle East and there is still a lot of confusion about what Arabs are - that the words 'Arab' and 'Muslim' are not synonymous," she said. "There is still a long way to go."