Bill and Genie Durland have been peace activists for 35 years. An attorney and professor, Bill brought four cases on war tax resistance to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980's. He has also served as an expert witness on constitutional and international law in a number of civil disobedience trials of peace activists. Together the Durlands founded and operated the National Center on Law and Pacifism from 1977 until 1989. During that time they developed and published several manuals and a bi-monthly journal on war tax resistance and civil disobedience.

In 1985, they lived in the Palestinian Occupied Territories for six months. They returned there in the summer of 2001 as members of a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation. They subsequently underwent training to become reservists in the Christian Peacemaker Teams and then led a delegation to the Occupied Territories in the summer of 2002. In the fall of 2002, with escalation of the war against Iraq looming, CPT began sending delegations to Baghdad as well. Bill and Genie joined such a delegation over the Christmas and New Years holidays, 2002-2003. They returned to Israel-Palestine in April 2004 for continued CPT work and to attend the 5th Annual Sabeel International Conference "Challenging Christian Zionism."

Bill has written a book entitled Immoral Wars, Illegal Laws which combines research on the historical, legal and theological roots and manifestations of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.