It’s awards week, so it must be political soapbox time. Again. At the Tony Awards on Sunday, America’s joyous celebration of all things theatre, the Best Supporting Actor winner, The Lost Boys star Ali Louis Bourzgui, decided to devote his acceptance speech to “the people of Palestine who deserve a free life, a full life, without occupation” and more of that sort of thing. He also sounded off against “the billionaires…the colonisers…the fascists.” He hoped, out loud, that, “We take a moment to recondition our addiction to desensitisation.”

Some of the audience, in that auditorium and watching on TV, might have reflected on the irony that Bourzgui himself evidently seemed somewhat desensitised to the fact that it is Palestinians themselves, in the form of Hamas, who are occupying the people of Gaza (while, up the road as it were, in Jordan, millions of their fellow Palestinians are colonised by the Hashemite dynasty, who hail from Saudi Arabia). Desensitised, too, to the fact that Israelis have been invaded, raped, mutilated, tortured, kidnapped, murdered en masse and are still under daily attack. Still others might note the fact that some of “the billionaires” he so seems to despise are the very people bankrolling the show currently giving him a decent wage, glory and, you know, a Tony.

Yet another celebrity acceptance speech, yet another detour into geopolitics from someone who clearly learned everything they know about the Middle East from Twitter. Ali Louis Bourzgui dedicated his Tony Award to immigrants and Palestinians, which would be admirable if the… https://t.co/y0jXjwmNWl — Creative Community for Peace (@CCFPeace) June 9, 2026

Yet another celebrity acceptance speech, yet another detour into geopolitics from someone who clearly learned everything they know about the Middle East from Twitter.

Ali Louis Bourzgui dedicated his Tony Award to immigrants and Palestinians, which would be admirable if the… https://t.co/y0jXjwmNWl

— Creative Community for Peace (@CCFPeace) June 9, 2026

But there’s a wider point. If I want to hear political invective, I will, and I won’t be looking to the American Theatre Wing. I will........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)