Days after destructive flash floods swept through central Texas in July 2025, social media users circulated a claim online that one city in the state required residents to sign an "Israel loyalty pledge" to be eligible for disaster relief funds.
The rumor spread on platforms such as X and Reddit.
While a Texas city did make disaster relief fund eligibility contingent on signing a pledge not to boycott Israel, the incident occurred in 2017 during Hurricane Harvey, not in 2025 during flash floods along the Guadalupe River. Furthermore, that city — Dickinson — later exempted people from the requirement. Thus, we rate this claim outdated.
A Google search for whether a similar situation happened more recently returned no results relevant to 2025. A search through websites of major cities and counties affected by the 2025 flash floods — including Kerrville, Burnet, Kerr County, Travis County, Kendall County, Williamson County and Tom Green County — did not discover any aid relief applications mandating a commitment to not boycott Israel.
As Snopes previously confirmed, the city of Dickinson included a provision in a 2017 Harvey aid application requiring would-be recipients to pledge to not boycott Israel. The online version of the "Hurricane Harvey Repair Grant" application aimed at rebuilding homes and businesses has since been taken down, but according to our previous reporting, this was one of the terms:
11. Verification not to Boycott Israel. By executing this Agreement below, the Applicant verifies that the Applicant: (1) does not boycott Israel; and (2) will not boycott Israel during the term of this Agreement.
Dickinson's then-Mayor Julie Masters told Houston TV news channel KHOU that the city was attempting to follow a 2017 Texas state law that prohibits governmental entities from doing business with companies boycotting Israel. As stated, however, that law is limited in scope to companies and should not impact individual recipients.
The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Phil King — a state representative at the time — also told multiple news outlets, including NPR, that the city misunderstood the law. According to NPR, King said the law was aimed at preventing taxpayer money from going to companies boycotting Israel, but the city's hurricane relief grant fund did not come from taxpayer money — it came from donations.
Dickinson reportedly removed the Israel provision just days after it made national news and drew a rebuke from the ACLU of Texas. At the time, city management assistant Bryan Milward said businesses in Dickinson still could not boycott Israel in order to get relief funding due to the city's interpretation of the state law, but individuals, like homeowners looking to rebuild, would be exempt from that requirement.
Dickinson is southeast of Houston on Texas' Gulf Coast and about 250 miles east of the areas hit hardest by the July 2025 flooding in Central Texas.