Word: paragraphs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Abraham Sofaer outlined the complex issues that the four women and two men on the jury had to evaluate. In reaching a verdict on former Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon's $50 million libel suit against Time Inc., he explained, they faced three sets of questions about a single paragraph in TIME's Feb. 21, 1983, cover story about an official Israeli report on the 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in West Beirut. First, could the disputed passage, which reported on discussions Sharon had with Lebanese Christian Phalangist leaders prior...
...unusual move, Sofaer asked the jury to report publicly their answers at each stage. After 14 hours of deliberations, the jury announced on Wednesday that it had found for Sharon on the first question. The paragraph, said the jury, implied that Sharon "consciously intended" to permit the Phalangists to take revenge by deliberately killing noncombatants in the camps. It took the jury an additional 20 hours of deliberation, which continued through Friday afternoon, to find that the disputed paragraph was in fact false. At week's end the jurors were still debating the question of malice...
...paragraph at issue in Sharon's lawsuit comes halfway through the eight- page story; it described a condolence call Sharon paid to the Gemayel family the day after Bashir's death and said that information about the visit was contained in a classified Appendix B to the report. The passage went on to say: "Sharon reportedly told the Gemayels that the Israeli army would be moving into West Beirut and that he expected the Christian forces to go into the Palestinian refugee camps. Sharon also reportedly discussed with the Gemayels the need for the Phalangists to take revenge...
...Manhattan, a smiling Sharon told reporters, "I am pleased that we won on this point." His attorney, Milton Gould, added, "I'm glad we're not going to get beaten on etymology." Moments later TIME Managing Editor Ray Cave said he felt that the jurors had "misread" the disputed paragraph and insisted once again that the passage in no way accused Sharon of responsibility for the massacre. The passage simply echoed the findings of the Kahan report, Cave said. He defended the magazine's use of confidential sources in seeking information about the events leading to the massacre. "Most magazines...
TIME stands by the substance of the paragraph in question: that "Sharon also reportedly discussed with the Gemayels the need for the Phalangists to take revenge for the assassination of Bashir, but the details of the conversation are not known." TIME did not say, and has never said, that Sharon intended that the Phalangists commit a massacre, or encouraged such a massacre...