Acts 14:2

‘But the Jews who were disobedient stirred up the souls of the Gentiles, and made them evilly disposed against the brethren.'

But Iconium was a very democratic city with its own broad assembly which determined civic matters. Thus the Jews who were unresponsive (‘disobedient'), and even hostile, and who were unhappy at what was happening in their synagogue, and offended by it, knew that if they wanted to be able to proceed against the new Christians they would only be able to do so if they whipped up sufficient Gentile support. They knew that they would need a majority opinion in the assembly in order to be able to do anything. And the result was that over the weeks they began to stir up a good number of Gentiles, seeking to turn them against those who were being converted to Paul's teaching.