Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the far-left American pro-Palestinian organization CODEPINK, met two men who were later extradited by the United States for their ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
In September 2014, Benjamin attended a three-day conference in Tehran organized by Ofek Hadad, where she was photographed alongside Nader Talebzadeh and Hamed Gashjawi. In 2019, US authorities identified the two men as intermediaries for the IRGC's Quds Force, its foreign operations arm.
The US Treasury Department sanctioned New Horizon in 2019, accusing it of helping the Revolutionary Guards recruit Western participants and gather intelligence.
An intelligence source told The Telegraph that Iran saw Binyamin as an "asset" to advance its narratives in the United States and Britain.
Benjamin then led a CODEPINK delegation to Iran in 2019 and met the then Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.