Israeli correspondents who travelled with Netanyahu to the two-day conference said that the prime minister had hinted to them during a briefing that his staff had footage of Gulf ministers addressing a session on Iran on Wednesday. Israel's Maariv newspaper said that the following day, "the prime minister's office posted (and shortly thereafter deleted) a video from the closed introductory panel about Iran."
Netanyahu's office declined to comment to AFP. On Friday, the Haaretz newspaper ran what it said were leaked clips, in one of which Bahrain's foreign minister is seen saying that Iran poses a "more toxic challenge" to the region than Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.
"We grew up talking about the Palestine-Israel dispute as the most important issue," Foreign Minister Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa tells fellow delegates. "But then, at a later stage, we saw a bigger challenge, more toxic - in fact the most toxic in our modern history - which came from the Islamic republic. "If it wasn't for the toxic money, guns and foot soldiers of the Islamic republic, I think that we would have been much closer today in solving this issue with Israel."
Bahrain is the staunchest Gulf supporter of Saudi Arabia's tough line against Shia Iran. The small but strategic kingdom is mostly Shia, according to unofficial estimates, and its Sunni rulers blame Iran for decades of Shia-led protests that flared up again in 2011. In another clip published by Haaretz, Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir accuses Iran of spreading "mischief" throughout the region.