Suez Crisis participated in later years, since Canada had spearheaded the idea of a neutral force). By 24 April 1957 the canal was fully reopened to shipping. Egyptian sovereignty and ownership of the canal had been confirmed by the United States and the United Nations. In retirement, Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister at the time, maintained that the military response had prevented a much larger war in the Middle East. Israel had been expecting an Egyptian invasion in either March or April 1957, as well as a Soviet invasion of Syria. The crisis may also have hastened decolonization, as many of
Suez Crisis Eden had just assumed that he would support the war without consulting him first. On 31 October he cited in Parliament the fact that, despite Eden's claim that the British government had consulted closely with the Commonwealth, no other member nation did; in the Security Council, not even Australia had supported the British action. He called the invasion The stormy and violent debates in the House of Commons on 1 November 1956 almost degenerated into fist-fights after several Labour MPs compared Eden to Hitler. Yet the Prime Minister insisted, "We [are not] at war with Egypt now.[…] There has not