A Jewish group has called for a former Sussex University professor, who tweeted that “Israelis blew up Twin Towers", to have his title connecting him to the institution removed.

Kees van der Pijl, who retired as the head of the International Relations department of the university in 2012, tweeted the conspiracy theory and a link to an article titled "9-11/ Israel did it" from Wikispooks, a website that fact checkers have said is “not a credible source”.

The Sussex Jewish Rep Council said it was "concerned by the conspiracy theories" tweeted by Professor van der Pijl.

It added the university should "investigate immediately and consider removing" his 'emeritus' status.

Professor van der Pijl no longer works at the university but the JC understands that it is looking into the incident to establish what, if any,  ction it can take, and whether it is possible for the emeritus title to be revoked.

The academic, who promotes himself as  “professor emeritus, Sussex university” on Twitter, doubled down.

He wrote: “After my remark on Zionist responsibility for 9/11, the 'Israel lobby' is no longer an empty term for me. Yet we have to put an end to the murderous 'War on Terror' ((c) Netanyahu 1986) that now has Iran in its sights.”

He also tweeted a Daily Mail article about his original tweet, which he criticised it for reporting that he wrote that “Israel” was behind 9/11, clarifying: “I wrote ‘Israelis’.”

In 2015, the Church of England vicar, Stephen Sizer tweeted a link to the same Wikispooks article on Holocaust Memorial Day.

He later apologised for his “insensitive and misguided comments”.