In the article below, Avner Boskey relates how the Israeli Evacuation which takes place this summer, falls during the time of "Bein Hameitzarim" and the Fast of Ab.

Those dates in history are highly significant and ominous.

Jim Goodrick
 

Dire straits

www.cybertime.net/~ajgood/ab205.html

Sunday February 20, 2005, Israel's cabinet set the date for a total Jewish evacuation from the Gaza Strip and four small communities in Northern Israel (near the JezreelValley). The exodus is slated to begin on a date dripping with prophetic significance – on the evening of July 24, the day after the Fast of the 17^th of Tammuz. The Fast of Tammuz kicks off the period traditionally known as 'bein hameitzarim' or the 'time of the dire straits' (evening of July 23 through evening of August 14). Many significant tragedies have befallen the Jewish people during this season, which climaxes on the 9^th of Av (the Fast of Tisha B'Av),

There are historical reasons why traditional Orthodox Jews consider this season to be a time of foreboding and doom. Here is a partial list of disasters which occurred during the 'time of the dire straits'. On the 17^th of Tammuz 70 A.D. the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem. Solomon's and Herod's Temples were both destroyed at the conclusion of the dire straits period, both on the Ninth of Av, 650 years apart. The Crusades were inaugurated during this season. Over a period of 200 years the Jewish populations of England, France and Spain were exiled during the 'dire straits'. The Ukrainian Khmelnitski massacres and various Holocaust decrees were also initiated during this period. The government of Israel could not have picked a day with worse symbolic meaning on which to initiate the forced removal of Jews from parts of the land