Chihuahua State has Illegal Agreement with israel

ByJesús Estrada

This article by Jesús Estrada originally appeared in the May 21, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Chihuahua, Chihuahua. The Central Water and Sanitation Board (JCAS) of Chihuahua maintains an illegal collaboration agreement with Israel, which was signed without notifying the Secretariat of External Relations (SRE) or the Mexican Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AMEXCID), which violates the Law on the Celebration of Treaties, denounced activists from the Salvemos los Cerros collective.

The so-called Cooperation Plan between the Israeli Agency for International Development Cooperation (Mashav) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of that country and the JCAS of Chihuahua was signed on February 23, 2023, with validity until 2027, but to date no results or specific work of the pact have been reported.

Although the agreement is related to the transfer of technology to make efficient use of water and guarantee water security, the board never registered it with the SRE or Amexcid.

The above violated articles 6 and 9 of the Law on the Celebration of Treaties, “worse still, in a transparency response its head, Mario Mata Carrasco, admitted that he is not competent to manage the registration,” the group stated.

“The official letter UDT-10914/2025, issued by the transparency unit of the SRE in response to a citizen request (folio 340002500003525), is conclusive: derived from an exhaustive, broad and sufficient search, no legal instruments entered into with Israel and the state of Chihuahua were found,” they stated.

For activists, the statement from AMEXCID directly contradicts the executive director of the water agency, who called the criticisms of the agreement “ridiculous”.

Furthermore, the aforementioned plan is ambiguous regarding its scope, objectives, and supposed benefits for Chihuahua; instead, it does obligate the JCAS to contracts and guarantees that favour the israeli private sector.

Another document, DEP-0147/23 issued by the general directorate of political coordination of the SRE, and obtained via the transparency platform (folio 080141126000001), establishes that the agreement with israel “differs substantially from that which was ruled by the legal consultancy, so a new review has been carried out, leaving the ruling of admissibility without effect.”

The SRE demanded that a signed copy of the cooperation plan be sent to them, but the JCAS never delivered it and responded that it was not competent to manage the registration of an international agreement, “thus accepting the violation of the law,” explained Luis Rivera Levario, spokesman for Salvemos los Cerros.

“Mario Mata broke the law, modified the agreement on his own and evaded federal control procedures; this agreement is also a violation of national sovereignty,” the activist added.

“israel, a state accused of genocide, has nothing to teach us about water management,” the activist accused; he also called the agreement a “betrayal of Chihuahua.”

The group has pointed out that the cooperation plan focuses on agricultural technology, even though JCAS itself only has authority in urban matters, which highlights a contradiction in its application.

“Collaboration with israel reinforces an extractive and unsustainable model, favouring the overexploitation of aquifers and areas with severe water stress,” the civil organization stated.

Mata called the criticisms of the agreement “ridiculous” and “laughable,” arguing that it only seeks Israeli technology for water management.

He rejected “any political or military undertones,” even comparing the accusations to “accusing those who shop in stores in El Paso, Texas, and in the United States of the same thing. We went for technology and supplies for the water system, which is very well-proven in israel and used all over the world,” asserted Mata Carrasco, who insisted that “at no time did we go to address a political or security issue; we went to discuss matters related to the water system.”

Mata appears in videos where he leads one of the road blockades by alleged farmers on May 16, when the state government of PAN member María Eugenia Campos tried to prevent the demonstration by supporters of Morena who demand impeachment proceedings against her for allowing the entry of US agents into the state.

The cooperation plan was signed by the Israeli ambassador to Mexico, Zvi Tal, and by Mario Mata for the government of Chihuahua; as witnesses, the PAN mayor of Delicias, Jesús Valenciano García, and the former MC deputy and current director of the Municipal Water and Sanitation Board, Alan Jesús Falomir Sáenz, who was responsible for opening a trench in the vicinity of the government palace on the day of the Morena protest.