Daniel Pipes reviews Pascal Bruckner's book

"The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism" Dr.Pipes says that the author exaggerates, "but not by much". Either buy the book or place a hold at your library.... the work  sounds very interesting.  (Emphasis mine)

....He shows how Europeans see themselves as "the sick man of the planet" whose pestilence causes every problem in the non-Western world (what he calls the South). When the white man set foot in Asia, Africa, or America, death, chaos, and destruction followed. Europeans feel themselves born with stigmata: "the white man has sown grief and ruin wherever he has gone." His pale skin signals his moral defectiveness......

....The South, in contrast, is deemed perpetually innocent. Even as colonialism fades into the past, Europeans righteously blame themselves for the plight of once colonized peoples. Eternal innocence means infantilizing non-Westerners; Europeans flatter themselves as the only adults – itself a form of racism. It also offers a way to preempt criticism.

This explains why Europeans ask what they "can do for the South rather than asking what the South can do for itself." It also explains why, after the Madrid bombings of 2004, a million Spaniards marched against not the Islamist perpetrators but their own prime minister. And worse: why they saw Spanish civilians "torn apart by steel and fire" as the guilty party.

As shown by the Madrid bombing and countless other acts of violence, Muslims tend to have the most hostile attitudes toward the West, and Palestinians rank as the most hostile of Muslims. That Palestinians face off against Jews, the extreme victims of Western murderousness, makes them a perversely ideal vehicle for rebutting Western guilt. Making matters worse, even as Europeans disarm themselves, Jews take up the sword and wield it unashamedly.......