THE PUBLISHER OF a US Jewish newspaper has apologised after suggesting that Israel should consider ordering the assassination of President Barack Obama.

Andrew Adler, who owns the weekly Atlanta Jewish Times, wrote a column proposing three options for Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu. One was ordering Mossad agents to take out Obama over his anti-Israeli policies.

Stating that US foreign policy should include “helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies”, Adler wrote that authorities could:

Give the go-ahead for US-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place [...] Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence.

However, Adler later told Gawker that he wasn’t calling for Obama’s assassination. “Of course not,” he said, adding: “I wrote it to see what kind of reaction I was going to get from readers.”

The Jerusalem Post reports that Adler has committed to running a full apology in the next edition of the paper. It quotes him as saying: “I very much regret it. I wish I hadn’t made reference to it at all.”

Jewish community lobby group the Anti-Defamation League has condemned Adler’s column as “outrageous and beyond the pale.” Its national director said: “There is absolutely no excuse, no justification, no rationalization for this kind of rhetoric. It doesn’t even belong in fiction.”

A spokesperson for the US Secret Service told CNN: “We are aware of [the article]. We are taking the appropriate investigative steps.”