[1] Nuseibeh was from an aristocratic Arab family descended from the female chieftain Nusaybah bint Ka'ab, an early convert to Islam who defended Muhammed during the Battle of Uhud in 625.

In 1939 he supported the Malcolm MacDonald White Paper which essentially called for the creation of a single democratic state for all citizens in Palestine irrespective of race.

After 1948, he led the Arab delegation to discuss the terms of the armistice and the ceasefire line with the newly founded Israeli government.

He originally opposed the Jericho Conference, which was favoured by his brother Hazem, but accepted the will of the majority and returned to Jerusalem to serve in the Jordanian government.

Nuseibeh held a number of cabinet posts in the Jordanian government, including Defence, Interior and Education, and stood for Parliament as well as serving in the Senate.

By the late 1950s he had moved away from the government in Amman as he gave up on convincing the young King Hussein to accept parliamentary democracy.

First, he believed that King Hussein and President Nasser had a moral duty to the Palestinians to restore the 1967 borders, because it was lost 'on their watch'.

This belief led to his support for a single state solution for Palestine in 1939, his opposition to the fascist dogmas in Europe in the 1930s and later as postulated by the Ba'ath movement.

When invited to become a founding member by Michel Aflaq, he declined in a telegram with a single line of 'I have always opposed Nazism'.