Politico has an article that mentions the Washington Post article but doesn’t tell you that the arrested men were Israelis; while Slate downplays the incident as the “strange tale of the dancing Israelis” in a piece on 9/11 legends. It says that story has taken on a life of its own among anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

Whether the Israelis were making asses of themselves or whether the story is repeated by conspiracy theorists is irrelevant. But the case was not a strange tale or a legend. The men were held by US authorities for more than two months before they were deported. This ABC News piece months later describes an investigation of suspicious behavior by the men:

Five men were arrested after they were seen filming the attack and apparently celebrating it too…

The driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, told the officers, “We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.”