Robert S. Rifkindanonovo-pg1, who played a pivotal role in successfully defending Time magazine against a $50 million libel suit filed by Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli general, defense minister and later prime minister, died on March 12 at his home in Manhattan. He was 88.

The cause was complications of myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease, his daughter Amy Rifkind said.

Mr. Sharon’s suit was prompted by a single paragraph in the Feb. 21, 1983, issue of Time. It referred to an Israeli government report on the massacre months earlier by Christian Phalange militiamen of at least 800 and as many as 3,66jogo Jogos de Cassino Online no Brasil500 civilian refugees, mostly Palestinians, in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. The massacre happened after Israel invaded Lebanon and the country’s president-elect, Bashir Gemayel, the Phalange leader, was assassinated.

The article suggested that Mr. Sharon had personally discussed retribution with Mr. Gemayel’s family, and that the Israelis looked the other way when the Phalangists extracted their revenge.

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A jury found in 1985 that Time had misrepresented Mr. Sharon’s role in the massacre. But the jury concluded that the magazine’s reporting did not meet the legal threshold for libel in the United States because it did not publish the article with actual malice or a reckless disregard for the facts.

An Israeli commission’s damning conclusions that Israeli forces did not stop the massacre led to Mr. Sharon’s resignation as defense minister. But the commission’s report did not say that Mr. Sharon himself had mentioned revenge to the Gemayel family.

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Ms. DePrince crammed a career’s worth of achievements into the 2010s.anonovo-pg1