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Reporting from Cairo and Tehran - Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attempted to unify Iranians on Sunday by blaming foreign media for "poisoning the atmosphere" and urged his nation to resist the "killer cancer" of an Israel backed by Western powers.

Delivering a sermon at Tehran University before a crowd that included President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and opposition cleric Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khamenei said the West had failed in its attempts to undermine the government with large opposition protests during countrywide anti-Israel rallies Friday.

"It showed that their [Western politicians'] tricks, spending money and political evilness do not influence the Iranian nation," said Khamenei, who was greeted with chants of "Leader, we offer our blood to you."

The 70-year-old spiritual leader's attacks on Israel echoed the vitriol of Ahmadinejad's speech two days earlier in which the president called the Holocaust a lie. Khamenei sought to reestablish his authority and calm an electorate divided by demonstrations, mass arrests and allegations of police torture after the president's disputed reelection in June over opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

Iranian officials over the weekend also had to contend with a dramatic shift in U.S. missile defense plans to counter potential Iranian strikes. President Obama's new policy calls for scrapping a missile defense system in Poland and the Cze... >>>