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In Sunday’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman writes about the negative view of America promoted in much of the Muslim world. He calls this negative view The Narrative.

The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand “American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy” to keep Muslims down.

Friedman acknowledges that America has made many mistakes in its engagement with the Arab/Muslim world—often in the course of war. But he also points out that America’s role in the Muslim world has been largely positive; something the Narrative conceals.

This kind of dangerous anti-American obfuscation is not only happening in the Middle East. It’s also happening in our backyard.

One seemingly innocuous way we see this is in American-Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison’s verbal spar with another Muslim over reform in the faith as a necessary way to stem terror. In that impromptu debate, Ellison sidestepped what are legitimate concerns for many Americans of all faiths—particularly in light of the pace of the recent plots emerging from within the Muslim community. Rather than seriously consider recent events, he claimed "I think you give people license for bigotry," and raised concerns that someone might rip off his daughter’s veil and spit at her.

Ellison was making a statement that transformed a legitimate worry over Islamist terror, into rhetoric which almost promotes the myth that Americans are Anti-Muslim. Like the preachers abroad, he was effectively claiming that Muslims are at risk from their fellow Americans. And it’s a fallacy. According to recent FBI figures, American Muslims are targeted less than Jews, Christians, gays, and many other groups. (For example: In 2008 there were 3,413 hate crimes reported against blacks, 1,584 against gays and 1,055 against Jews. Compare this with 123 for Muslims.)

Rather than attempting to deal head on with the threat and calls for reform, Ellison basically brought The Narrative to the halls of Capitol Hill.

Asra Nomani, another American Muslim who has done a lot of work on women’s rights in Islam, wrote that some of the political Islamist messages feeding The Narrative at home come directly from Saudi Arabia.

Several of the sermons she heard at her West Virginia mosque—including attacks against “the ‘dark path’ of the West”—were lifted directly from a website which “disseminates prefab speeches of political Islam by clerics in Saudi Arabia. It calls itself the ‘orator’s garden and the Muslim’s provision’ and follows the Wahhabi school of Islam preached in Saudi Arabia.”

These anti-American messages permeated the narrative Malik Hasan told himself about his country, and they have come to occupy a significant place in the minds of large numbers of Muslims abroad and at home. Friedman writes

“You keep telling us what Islam isn’t. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves.”

Thankfully, Friedman is wrong. There are brave Muslims like Asra Nomani and Irshad Manji and Zuhdi Jasser and others who have publicly spoken out on both what they love about their faith as well as where they see a need for reform. But until thousands of Muslims begin doing the same—focusing on the problems within their community, rather than promoting myths that incite and deflect criticism—we can expect The Narrative to have a growing impact in the future.