By ROBERT F. WORTH

BEIRUT, Lebanon, September 19, 2009 — Tens of thousands of green-clad protesters chanted and carried banners through the heart of Tehran and other Iranian cities on Friday, defying tear gas and truncheons as they turned large swaths of a government-organized anti-Israel march into the largest opposition rally in two months.

Amid the protests, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a fiery anti-Israeli speech in honor of the annual Jerusalem Day ceremonies, calling the Holocaust “a lie,” among his harshest statements on the topic, and impugning the West again for its criticisms of Iran’s disputed June 12 presidential election.

Through a tumultuous day of street rallies, police were often on the sidelines as protesters faced off against huge crowds of government supporters — many of them bused in from outside the cities — and chain-wielding Basij militia men. There were reports of arrests in Tehran and the southern city of Shiraz, but no shootings or deaths, with the police apparently showing greater restraint than at earlier protests.

Conservatives had warned against using the annual pro-Palestinian march as an excuse for renewed protests against Mr. Ahmadinejad, whose election plunged Iran into its worst internal crisis in three decades.

But the protesters turned out anyway, often walking alongside larger groups of state-sanctioned marchers bearing huge banners denouncing Israel. The protesters even flouted the day’s official message, chanting “No to Gaza and Lebanon, my life is for Iran.” And when government men shouted “death to Israel” through loudspeakers, protesters derisively chanted “death to Russia” in response. Many opposition supporters are angry about Russia’s quick acceptance of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s electoral victory.

Opposition leaders Mir Hussein Moussavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Muhammad Khatami joined the crowds in Tehran, drawing appreciative cheers and chants of support. Later, Basij militia members tried to attack Mr. Khatami and Mr. Karroubi, but defenders fought them back, opposition Web sites reported.

The government had largely halted street protests in July, with a harsh government crackdown that left dozens of marchers dead and thousands in jail. But the authorities have been unable to silence the opposition’s leaders, who have kept up their criticism of the election and the government’s violent response. The opposition leaders raised tensions when they leveled accusations that some protesters were tortured and raped in prison. The rape accusations have been especially embarrassing for the government, which has denied them while acknowledging that some prisoners were tortured.

There were reports of similar demonstrations and clashes in other cities Friday, including Isfahan, Tabriz, Yazd, and Shiraz, where protesters skirmished with Basij militia men, and freed a group of fellow protesters who were being arrested, opposition Web sites reported.

In the capital, police and huge crowds of government supporters blocked most protesters from approaching Mr. Ahmadinejad as he arrived in a bullet-proof car at Tehran University to deliver a speech before the formal Friday prayers sermon. But as he began his remarks, chants of “Resign! Resign!” could be heard, according to witnesses cited on opposition Web sites.

Mr. Ahmadinejad said confrontation with Israel was a “national and religious duty” and that the Holocaust was “a lie” used as a pretext for the country’s creation in 1948. Although he has called the Holocaust a “myth” in the past, provoking angry reactions in the West, he does not appear to have used the word “lie” in connection with it before.

In Washington, the White House responded sharply to the remarks about the Holocaust from the Iranian leader. The president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said that by denying that the Holocaust took place was “ignorant, hateful and would isolate Iran further from the world.”

“Obviously, we condemn what he said,” Mr. Gibbs told reporters.

The speech came a day after President Obama, in a major national security reversal, scuttled his predecessor’s missile-shield plan to focus instead on protecting Israel and Europe against short and medium-range Iranian missiles. The Iranian government has not responded to that announcement, which came during the Iranian weekend and just before the start of the Jerusalem Day ceremony.

Both the revised missile plan and Mr. Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel rhetoric are likely to elevate the tensions surrounding his visit to the United Nations for its General Assemblymeeting in New York next week.

The United States ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, said Friday that President Obama would not meet with Mr. Ahmadinejad next week when world leaders meet in New York City for the U.N. General Assembly meeting.

“I don’t think there is much likelihood that there will be an interaction,” Ms. Rice said. “There is no obvious venue where that would occur.”

Iran’s government has canceled a number of public gatherings over the past month, apparently fearing a renewal of the vast rallies that took place in the weeks after the election. As Jerusalem Day approached, a number of conservative figures, including Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that the day should not become an occasion for domestic discontent. On Thursday, the Revolutionary Guard issued an especially fierce statement, declaring that all protesters would be treated as Israeli spies.

But the government appears to have treated the widespread protests with relative leniency. Although tear gas was fired at some crowds in central Tehran — it was not clear by whom — there was no renewal of the fierce crackdown that took place in June and July, when dozens of people were killed and thousands jailed.

Although the marchers celebrating Jerusalem Day generally outnumbered the protesters, there were parts of the city where the opposite was true. Often, the protesters slyly distorted the traditional rallying cries of the pro-government crowds. When the marchers chanted “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader,” protesters countered with “The blood in our veins is a gift to our nation.”

At one point thousands of protesters chanting “death to the dictator” as they walked down Valiasr Street, the broad avenue that runs across much of Tehran, collided with an equally large crowd of pro-government marchers chanting slogans against Israel, the United States, and Britain.

A tense standoff ensued. Police officers standing nearby refused to take sides, and in some cases even stepped in to break up fights. Finally, several trucks full of government supporters arrived, and the protesters began withdrawing in the direction from which they had come.

Iranian state television ignored the protests, showing thousands of marchers clad in checked Palestinian-style scarves, carrying posters of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Jerusalem Day, held on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan, is an important occasion for the government, which uses its support for Palestinian militants and the Lebanese Hezbollah to burnish its street support in an Arab world that is largely hostile to Iran.

Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Toronto and Jeff Zeleny from Washington.

Source: New York Times, September 18, 2009

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