Paul's "persecution" of the early Christians?

[Jehanne]

Huggy, the story told in Acts ( a book of historical fiction, btw) is that "Paul" was on his way to Damascus.

9 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

Acts

Damascus was a Greco-Roman city, a long way from Jerusalem, and part of the so-called Decapolis which was a loose confederation of similar Greco-Roman towns under the aegis of the Roman governor of Syria.  The notion that some smelly little jew from Jerusalem could go to another city in the Roman empire and kidnap Roman subjects  to drag them as prisoners back to Jerusalem has always been extremely amusing.  I imagine the local city magistrate would have made short work of "paul."

But, it makes for an excellent story, which is what the early gospels and Acts were all about. The early Paul was also a storyteller, as were his later incarnations.

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If he were a rapper, he;d have written both of those lines as 

You gave me an idea...

"The Fresh Paul of Bel Air"

West of side of Tarsus, born and raised
Persecuting is how I spent most of my days
Maxin’ relaxin killin Peter’s faction
One day I was on the road to Damascus
Up in the sky, Jesus said “You’re no good.
Why you startin’ trouble in my neighborhood?”
After one little massacre, God went cray
He said, “You’re movin in with Peter and James in Judea”

You need to make a YouTube video! At least 1K in ad money!!

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Israel had been annexed by the Roman empire, thus making the Jews subjects of Rome.

Ah, I misread, for some reason I was thinking the op was referring to Paul persecuting Roman citizens; but nevertheless, how do you explain Jesus who was also a roman subject being able to be arrested by the Sanhedrin?

The term is "federalism"; it's why the Empire lasted as long as it did.