On March 6, 1965, the late president Habib Bourguiba, the father of Tunisian independence and the Arab secular icon, made an unusual trip to the West Bank, which was under Jordanian rule, and visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Jericho.

As thousands of people came out to welcome him, Bourguiba told them what they didn't want to hear. His speech at the camp became ultimately his legacy, in which he shattered an Arab political taboo by calling for a negotiated settlement with Israel.

In those days, such a position was unthinkable. The prevailing Arab policy then was to liberate all of Palestine. Any other talk was considered high treason, blasphemy even.

As courageous as ever, Bourguiba said "passionate speeches" will not liberate the occupied land.

"As for the policy of the ‘whole or nothing', it brought us defeat in Palestine and reduced us to the sad situation we are struggling with today… the Arabs pushed away the compromise solutions. They rejected the division … [and] they regretted it then," he said.

He was referring to the UN General Assembly resolution 181, adopted on November 29, 1947, to partition Palestine. Bourquiba was not only "booed and cursed" by his Palestinian audience but had rotten tomatoes hurled at him. Arab media called him "the traitor."

But the Bourguiba prophecy proved true. We have regretted every day that passed since that ‘unorthodox' speech. Today, the Tunisian leader is being recognised as "a visionary" who was misunderstood by the Arab world.

More importantly, the Bourguiba ‘incident' shows that as Arabs, we never thought of a contingency plan, a Plan B, to deal with most of our central issues — like the Palestinian question.

Henceforth, when Jamal Abdul Nasser miscalculated the odds in June 1967 and the Arabs suffered the most humiliating defeat in their modern history, they didn't seem to have any clue about how to approach the Arab-Israeli conflict. They actually gave up and decided it was for the United States to sort out the mess. Late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat repeatedly said "99 per cent of the cards" were in the hand of America.

On January 9, 2011, the Arab system will again be tested. On that day, the fateful Southern Sudan referendum will be held and is widely expected to lead to the division of the largest Arab country into two states. The referendum is a key part of Sudan's 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA); the accord that ended over two-decades of civil war between north and south. The war killed hundreds of thousands and displaced at least four million people.

So far, a historic vote that will definitely reshape the Arab geopolitical landscape has failed to attract Arab interest. And in the immortal words of Bourguiba, we will "regret it."

Certainly, the southerners have the right to self determination. But what has the Arab system done to ensure that the south will remain an integral part of Sudan? Nothing. And we are not talking about force here. For decades, Arabs sat on the fence watching the bloody conflict in Sudan eroding every last sense of unity in that proud part of the Arab nation. Even when the southerners opted for a vote on separation, the Arab reaction was that Sudan "shall not be divided" but without a Plan B or even a counter-offer that would make unity "attractive" to the southerners.

In addition to the loss of one third of the Sudanese territory, there are real fears the break-up could trigger another war. There are a number of potential triggers because of the conflict over the oil-rich region of Abyei. The region lies in the north-south border and there is no agreement on its state.

Another potential trigger is oil, Sudan's main source of income. The vast majority of the active oil fields — 90 per cent — are in the south, but the main transport lines are in the north.

There is also the issue of water. Under the treaties of 1929 and 1959, Egypt and Sudan, control up to 90 per cent of the water from the River Nile. There are serious doubts that a new state in southern Sudan will recognise these agreements.

For decades the Arab League shunned, and actually ridiculed the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the southerners' main party, which is poised to be the ruling party of the independent south. Since independence in 1956, the south has remained neglected by the national government as it reeled forever under poverty and lack of infrastructure. Its plight was also ignored by other Arab states. The conflict was considered an internal affair.

The 2005 CPA offered an option by which the national governments and Arab states put a plan to develop the infrastructure in the south and invest in its health, education and transport systems and create job opportunities as a way to maintain unity. But no Arab government took the initiative. The only real investment in the south is European.

Most Arabs didn't want to hear about the conflict, hoping it would go away. It didn't, and in less than three months we will be faced with the moment of truth.

On or around January 9, 2011, another part of the Arab ‘fatherland' will be taken away. And we have yet to come up with a plan on how to deal with the ramifications. In fact, most of the Arabs continue to be in a state of denial— reminiscent of the days that preceded the loss of Palestine and the invasion of Iraq.

Sudan will emerge weaker and poorer. Its people, along with the rest of the Arabs, will only live to "regret it."