A rabbi who once advised Hillary Clinton claims he was misled into contributing to a new book filled with essays arguing that the Paris terror attacks in January were a conspiracy.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, who had "brainstorming" sessions with Mrs Clinton at the White House while she was First Lady in 1993, wrote an article for a book titled We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo: Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11.

A statement promoting the compilation says that, of the book's 22 authors, "most suspect the whole affair was a false flag operation or psy-op".

The rabbi, who founded his own synagogue in California, contributed a piece called "Mourning the Parisian Journalists Yet Noticing the Hypocrisy", in which he criticises the Western media for prioritising the attack over the "daily deaths of over 10,000 children a day from malnutrition-related diseases".

However, he told the JC he was "absolutely misled" by the book's editor, Kevin Barrett, who, he claimed, told him "they were collecting a series of responses to the Charlie Hebdo incident.

"He didn't say anything about the thesis of the book being about false flag operations, which I think is ridiculous and stupid.

"If he had said that was the nature of the book, I would have said 'Forget it, I don't want to be in that book'. But that's not what he said."

Mr Barrett told Press TV this week that 9/11 was "the most spectacular act of deception in human history".

The compilation includes pieces by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and far-right author Alain Soral.

It is endorsed by Richard Falk, the UN's former special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, who posted an antisemitic cartoon on his website.

Rabbi Lerner said: "I regret being involved in this. I don't subscribe to the false flag thesis one bit. I don't support these conspiracy theories, both because I don't believe they're true, and also because it would be a waste of time to investigate if they did exist."