are you saying theodor meron was wrong?> i don't. >> know if. >> he was right or wrong from a legal point of view, but he was wrong from a pragmatic point of view. israel was under a steady attack all the time. >> so just to help me understand this, for the israeli leadership at the time, pragmatism triumphed over international law. >> what you. call pragmatism was in. >> our eyes. you just said pragmatism. >> pragmatism in the sense of security, of defending our lives. yes. >> president peres now says getting rid of most of the settlements is key to a lasting peace. israel's official position is that its settlements do not violate international law. it calls the west bank disputed territory not occupied because it says it was never a recognized independent country. >> the real problem is you can call it pragmatic, you can call it legal. was the war over? it was not. >> 40 years later, we spoke to theodor meron, a holocaust survivor who became one of the world's most respected authorities on international law. he stands by