Hezbollah Chief Defiant at Huge Rally

At the first words uttered by Nasrallah, perhaps the most skilled orator in Arabic today, the crowd erupted, the cries drowning him out. Speakers broadcast his words at each end of the field, awash in a sea of fluttering yellow, interspersed with the flags of allies. Some people flashed V-for-victory signs. Others joined chants. "O God, O God, protect Nasrallah!"

"No army in the world will be able to make us drop the weapons from our hands!" Nasrallah shouted.

In a black turban, with a slight lisp, Nasrallah has an almost innate sense of a crowd. He builds an argument with highly formal Arabic vocabulary, then delivers a point in almost conversational slang. His most emotional refrains are delivered bluntly, in a stentorian staccato. Then he mixes in jokes, a few words in a softer voice, and sometimes a quick aside.

In his speech Friday, he said he had debated whether to attend the rally until a half-hour before it began.

"But my heart, mind and soul did not allow me to address you from afar," he said.

Hezbollah's opponents in Lebanon feared a harsher speech. Although Nasrallah ridiculed Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora for crying in public during the war -- "Tears don't protect anyone" -- he tempered his strongest statements.

"When we build a strong and just state that is capable of protecting the nation and its citizens, we will easily find an honorable solution to the issue of the resistance and its weapons," he said.

He demanded the resignation of the government, saying it "was incapable of protecting Lebanon, rebuilding it or uniting it." But there was no threat that Hezbollah's two ministers would resign, nor any warning that the movement would engage in street protests.

Every so often, he played to the crowd, which followed his words as if at a lecture. At each mention of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the United States or Israel, the audience erupted in catcalls. At the mention of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a critic of America, cheers went up, repeated when Nasrallah defended Hezbollah's alliance with Iran and Syria.

Toward the end of his speech, he called the resistance more powerful than before the war.

"The resistance, pay attention," he said, "has more than 20,000 missiles."

At that, fists went into the air, and some clambered onto chairs. Ribai turned to his younger daughter and kissed her head. Zeinab waved Nasrallah's portrait overhead.

"It's the majority that counts," Ribai said. "The real majority, I'm talking about the people who are here."

"I hope that everyone can stay like this," Zeinab added. "One hand joined together."

The speech ended in an hour. Within minutes, the group's workers were stacking tens of thousands of chairs. Honking cars soon lurched away, blaring Nasrallah's older speeches and flying flags. Some people on balconies threw rice on the crowd, as firecrackers and celebratory gunfire went off along the street. Overhead, as the crowd left, only three balloons of the original six were left.

All of them carried Hezbollah flags.