Winston Churchill was the subject of an assassination plot, proposed by a Jewish terrorist who murdered a British government minister during the Second World War

Eliyahu Bet-Zuri suggested sending agents of the Stern Gang, a Zionist terrorist group devoted to forcing the British out of Palestine, to London to kill the prime minister, a move that would have had a devastating effect on morale while Britain was at war. According to the MI5 files, Bet-Zuri suggested that Churchill should be a target in November 1944. However, the Secret Intelligence Service did not learn of the idea until the following year, when another member of the group was arrested and spilled the beans. According to a report by Major James Robertson, from MI5's Middle East Section, the suspect revealed: "As soon as he (Bet-Zuri] returned to Stern Group headquarters, he proposed to suggest a plan for the assassination of highly placed British political personalities, including Mr Churchill, for which purpose emissaries should be sent to London." Bet-Zuri was hanged in 1945 for murdering Lord Moyne, Britain's Middle East minister, in Cairo in November 1944. But MI5 remained deeply concerned that Jewish terrorists might try to assassinate other leading British politicians.