This Sunday’s first reading is a paean to the ancient city of Jerusalem, which is called on to “rise up in splendor” as “nations” and “kings” “gather and come to you” drawn by the city’s “shining radiance.” But in recent decades, Jerusalem has been a zone of strife and conflict, particularly between Israelis and Palestinians, both of whom make claims upon the city.

If Mr. Trump as one of his first acts in office moves the embassy to Jerusalem without also simultaneously making efforts to jump-start peace talks, it would likely incite an explosion of anger among Palestinians and serve as a rallying cry for Islamic extremists from Tehran to Raqqa, Syria.

The Vatican has expressed the position that Jerusalem should become an international city, either under the United Nations or a related organization. Pope Pius XII was among the first to make such a proposal in the 1949 encyclical Redemptoris nostri cruciatus. This idea was later re-proposed during the papacies of John XXIII, Paul V, and John Paul II.