November 20, 2006 -- It's not easy being an Arab-American in the United States these days - but it apparently makes for some funny material.

The fourth annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival featured stand-ups taking aim at everything from racist stereotypes to politics to government profiling.

The six-night event, which kicked off last Tuesday at Gotham Comedy Club, showed off the talents of 30 comedians.

"Where are my Arab-Americans at?" asked host Pete Dominick. "Where's Homeland Security? Show yourself! I love that I was the first guy to make that joke."

Comedians from all around the world have joined the festival - including a blind 18-year-old girl from Australia whose hometown collected the money to fly her to New York.

The event began in 2003 to bring more positive coverage to Arab-Americans, at a time when "the community felt much more under siege," said festival co-founder and comedian Dean Obeidallah, 36, a former lawyer who works part-time for "Saturday Night Live."

"It's great for us when we see a story that doesn't say, 'Arabs are terrorists, gunmen or militants.' I joke that a positive story is when it says 'alleged terrorists, gunmen or militants.' "

Currently co-producing a show called "The Watch List" for Comedy Central, Obeidallah compared today's Arab-American stand-up scene to the Jewish humor that came out of the 1940s.

"It's a lot of jokes in response to people picking on you and being viewed as an outsider," he said. "You use comedy to dispel that. We're not the Arab Woody Allens yet, but I think there's a similarity."

More importantly, he said, the festival is about dispelling the stereotype that Arabs have zero ability to laugh at themselves.

"People never think Arabs can be funny," he said. "So we try to show people, yes, we can be funny. We try to show that we have a culture like every other immigrant group in America."