 Wapo, Reg req'd, posted the whole thing.
BEIRUT, Sept. 22 -- In the mix of theater and pulpit that makes for a Hezbollah rally, the group's leader, Hasan Nasrallah, appeared Friday before hundreds of thousands of supporters for the first time since its war with Israel ended last month. His message was defiant, with the bravado the crowd expected: Hezbollah was stronger than before the war, he said, and it still possessed more than 20,000 rockets. Only the creation of a strong Lebanese government, he added, would lead to its disarmament, as demanded by the United Nations.
Kamal Ribai, a shy, soft-spoken businessman in the crowd with his son and two daughters, thrust his fist into the air. "At your command, Nasrallah!" he shouted, as six balloons floated above him carrying Lebanese and Hezbollah flags.
In an anxious and unsettled time in Lebanon, the Shiite Muslim group organized its largest show of force since a cease-fire went into effect Aug. 14. The spectacle filled a 37-acre lot, about a mile from the group's war-wrecked headquarters in a Beirut suburb, with flag-waving, boisterous supporters.
For the movement and the rest of the country, the rally signaled Hezbollah's direction after a battle it has proclaimed a "divine victory." Sounding less strident than some had expected, Nasrallah said he would seek a government that better represented his group and its allies, ridiculed the prime minister and scoffed at the attempts of "any army in the world" to seize its weapons.
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But the country's future was perhaps better suggested by the scenes that unfolded among people in the crowd, some of whom had trekked two days on foot from southern Lebanon to join what Hezbollah called a festival of victory. In moments sometimes quiet, sometimes shrill, Lebanon's fault lines were exposed: Here was a country perched between a culture of resistance to Israel and a desire to reach an accommodation with it. Chants and iconography reflected the cult of personality around Nasrallah and confidence in the power of the long-downtrodden Shiite community in a country whose various sects -- Christian, Sunni and Druze -- often see one's strength as the other's weakness.
"This is all of Lebanon you see around you," Ribai said confidently, waving his hand. "It's all of Lebanon. Look at it."
"The real majority," he said, referring to Hezbollah and its allies. "As long as they stay united, nothing will go wrong."
Hezbollah's call for the rally this week unleashed a wave of anxiety and anticipation in Beirut. Some saw Nasrallah's appearance as a way to reinforce the notion of victory to his supporters, who bore the brunt of a 33-day conflict. Others saw it, more darkly, as a first step toward delivering the state to Hezbollah.
"What will Nasrallah say at the festival of victory?" read the banner headline in Friday editions of as-Safir, a leading Beirut daily.
"It's a big moment," Ribai said. "It's a big moment for all of Lebanon."
The mood has shifted in Lebanon in the weeks since the war ended. Most politicians tried to maintain a facade of unity while the battle raged, but it evaporated within days of the cease-fire. With little more than the rubble cleared and makeshift bridges built, the extent of the damage has sunk in. The mood has sobered: While Israel may not have won, to many here the notion of victory is more ambiguous.
In subtle ways, Hezbollah's message has changed, too. At the rally Friday, the group's slogan about a coming victory -- "The Truthful Pledge" -- had become "Our Truthful Pledge." One of its professionally produced posters read, "America and its tools have been defeated." In a country used to reading between the lines, "tools" could mean allies both abroad and at home.
"If Hezbollah wanted to fight, in one hour it would take all of Lebanon," said Mahmoud Birjawi, a 35-year-old Lebanese expatriate who flew from Venezuela two days ago, in part to attend the rally. He scoffed at the idea of strife inside the country, memories of its 1975-90 war still vivid. But he added that "the future is for the resistance," the name Hezbollah uses for its militia.
As Birjawi waited with the crowd in the sun-drenched lot, supporters cheered and waved Hezbollah's yellow flags each time a taped recording of Nasrallah's speech was played. "This is our country," he said. "We defended this country."
A Hezbollah rally is many things: a show of force, of discipline, of empowerment and of the loyalty of its following. The group's followers have a mantra -- What Nasrallah says, he does -- and that credibility was on display even on the posters overhead. Four depicted battle scenes, reading, in order: "Our water," "Our air," "Our earth," "With fire, we defended." In the top left corner of two, "reconstruction" was written, acknowledging that pictures of a helicopter and ship exploding did not depict actual events.
To a degree unmatched in the Arab world, Hezbollah can mobilize supporters, who answer its call with almost martial precision. "Every drop in the ocean counts," Ribai said.
Ribai and his family are from Tibnin, a southern village scarred by the fighting this summer. As with many Shiites from the poorer south, the 50-year-old emigrated to Liberia and Sierra Leone to earn money, then returned to Lebanon. He now lives in Beirut. At the rally, he was earnest, even retiring, doting on his three children -- ages 20, 19 and 9 -- who accompanied him. "When Sayyid Hasan called everyone, I decided to come," he said, using an honorific. "I didn't think twice about it."
More pronounced than before the war, a cult of personality has grown up around Nasrallah. T-shirts in the crowd with his picture read, "Hero of the resistance." Some people wore miniature portraits of him as necklaces. As with many, Ribai talked of Nasrallah with a certain awe. Nasrallah's son, Ribai pointed out, had been killed fighting Israeli troops occupying southern Lebanon in 1997.
"Somebody who sacrificed his own son's life? He did everything he could for this country. He asks you to come celebrate this victory. Why would I think twice about it?" he said. His daughter Zeinab, 20, leaned into the conversation. "He's one of us," she said.
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. 
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