 A meeting with the participation of Blumenthal and Sheen at Berlin’s "Volksbühne" ("People's Theatre") on November 9, 2014 (the anniversary of "Kristallnacht") to discuss Israel's "war crimes" in Gaza was also cancelled.In "The 51 Day War" (2015), Blumenthal writes that he was in Gaza during and following Operation Protective Edge, the Israeli military offensive in Gaza during the summer of 2014.Blumenthal believed that the catalyst was the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by a Hamas cell.