The Palestinians have two main options at the United Nations, seeking either full membership through the Security Council or enhanced observer status in the General Assembly, moving from an “entity” to a nonmember observer state.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, announced Friday that he would go the Security Council route, which the Americans have said they would veto. Although it puts the Palestinians on a collision course with Washington, the effort could also get lost for months in a bureaucratic thicket, giving the United States time to try to restart negotiations and making an embarrassing veto unnecessary. In his speech to the General Assembly in 2010, President Obama said he hoped the Palestinians would join the United Nations now.

Going to the Council risks alienating Washington, but some analysts believe it is the only leverage left to the Palestinians.

In the past, as long as Arab despots endorsed American control over the peace process, officials in Washington usually ignored how they treated their citizens.

“One thing that they are trying to do to overcome that legacy is to present themselves as the main ally and sponsor of democratization in the region, the friend of the people’s aspirations,” Mr. Rabbani said. “That is going to be undermined as the U.S. being seen as pro-Israeli and actively being forced to show its cards by vetoing.”

Palestinians believe that their position has gradually eroded over the past 20 years, when the United States began monopolizing the negotiations with the 1991 Madrid peace conference. They remain under occupation, the number of Jewish settlers has tripled to around 600,000, and they have far less freedom of movement in the territories ostensibly meant to become their state.

“What could be discussed and what emerged from those negotiations had to do with what the United States and their Israeli allies wanted,” said Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor and an advisor to the Palestinian delegation in Madrid and Washington from 1991-93.