Israeli checkpoints are under construction at a new site between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Hebron near Bethlehem. (Fadi Tanas, Maan Images)

Palestinian businessmen who returned from exile over the last decade to help build the economy in the occupied territories have launched a campaign against a change in Israeli immigration policy that they say is forcing them out.

The policy is also affecting academics and other professionals with foreign passports, the vanguard of a future state, who have been either denied entry to the territories or granted only short-term visas when returning from trips abroad.

The problem became acute after Hamas took over the Palestinian government at the end of March, followed by an international aid boycott of the militant Islamist group.

Palestinians say Israel's policies are harming those very moderates who hope to create an alternative to violence and religious fundamentalism.

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"If Israel wants to end up with Somalia next door, it's going the right way about it," says Zahi Khoury, a US citizen and chairman of the National Beverage Company, which holds the franchise for Coca-Cola in the territories.

Mr Khoury, who was born in Jaffa, now Israel, in 1938, was recently given only a one-week visa instead of the usual three months. He wrote to Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, who he says was shocked by the situation. He hopes to raise the issue in a meeting soon with Ehud Olmert, Israeli prime minister.

Many Palestinians such as Mr Khoury moved to the territories in the wave of hope that followed the Oslo accords of the early 1990s. But Israel retained control over immigration. Access to the West Bank is only possible through Israeli-controlled territory.

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