[3] In January 1948, during the Palestine War, Rimawi issued a broadcast from AHC radio dismissing claims by the Haganah (the Jewish paramilitary force) that "wealthy Arabs" were fleeing their homes.

[3] Rimawi and Abdullah Na'was founded the social, cultural and political al-Baath newspaper in 1948, although at that time neither officially joined the Ba'ath Party.

[6] However, with assistance from Cairo-based exiled Jordanian Army general Abdullah el-Tell, both set up the party's branch in Jordan the following year, in 1949.

[7] By the end of the war, much of what was the British Mandate of Palestine fell into Israeli hands, but the Arab Legion of Transjordan captured a large swathe of territory called the West Bank.

On the orders of then-Transjordanian Prime Minister Tawfik Abu al-Huda, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Bayir Jail located in the country's southern desert.

[8] Rimawi initiated his political career in 1950 when he was elected to the Jordanian Parliament as an independent representative (the Ba'ath Party was officially banned in Jordan at the time) of the District of Ramallah.

Along with the rest of the parliament, he voted to officially recognize the new union between the West Bank (which the Arab Legion captured in the 1948 War) and Transjordan to form the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan under Abdullah I.

[9] During this time period, Rimawi like many of his Arab nationalist colleagues in Jordan, became a fervent supporter of pan-Arabist Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser who, in that year in particular, clinched an arms deal with the Soviet bloc, strongly advocated pan-Arab unity, and adopted "positive neutralism" as the political path of the Arab world during the Cold War era.

Rimawi condemned the censorship which he claimed was intended to protect the position of Glubb Pasha, the British commander of the Jordanian Army whose role in the 1948 War was constantly put under scrutiny by the government.

[13] Rimawi was the main force behind al-Nabulsi's efforts to replace the annual British subsidy to Jordan with aid from Arab states.

An internal conflict ensued between al-Nabulsi and Rimawi, with the latter advocating a swifter route to pan-Arab unity and the former calling for a more moderate approach.

Rimawi, meanwhile, was developing a close relationship with the influential Arab nationalist army chief-of-staff and an ally of the king, Ali Abu Nuwar.

[15] The growing divisions between the royal family and the leftist government reached its peak on April 8, 1957; Jordanian Army units led by the Free Officers clashed with troops loyal to King Hussein during a military exercise in az-Zarqa by the former.

As a part of the exercise, army units approached the palace of the king's mother and other key royal institutions in az-Zarqa and the outskirts of Amman.

[18] Dozens of cabinet members (including al-Nabulsi), army officers, and other leftist politicians were soon arrested, but Rimawi and a number of his allies evaded capture by fleeing to Syria at the height of the crisis.

With the aid of Abdel Hamid Sarraj, governor-general of the Northern Region (Syria), Rimawi and his fellow exiles, Abu Nuwar chief among them, founded the Revolutionary Council.

[21] Rimawi was accused of by Jordanian authorities of personal involvement in an assassination attempt against then-Jordanian Prime Minister Hazza' al-Majali in January 1960.