In October of 1973 the Yom Kippur War developed rapidly, as the coordinated Egyptian-Syrian offensive caught Israel by surprise. After several months of negotiations, during which sporadic fighting continued, Israel reached a disengagement agreement with Syria on May 31, 1974. Israel withdrew its troops from Golan Heights and a United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) occupied a buffer zone between Israeli and Syrian forces. This peacekeeping mission was led by 1,200 United Nations troops of which a small part (187 troops) were Canadian. The several reasons why in 1974 Canada should not have sent in peacekeepers, include: the small and insignificant size of the forces and their inability to create a large change, the religious nature of the war, and the deaths associated with observing a hostile area.

On October 24th 1974 a cease-fire was organized by the United Nations. They sent their own peacekeepers to the highly volatile regions affected by the fighting. Between...