Paul Hirschson, deputy consul general for Israel in Miami, told AFP that the Israeli government wanted to obtain the @israel account from the man, whose name is Israel Melendez.
"Once we decided that we wanted to use the name Israel in our Twitter account we started to look for who had it," the diplomat said.
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Melendez also operates a pornographic website, but Hirschson said that for the state of Israel, "it was not important to know who he was and what he used the account for. We needed to have the name of Israel because we are the state of Israel."
"The fact that this man had other activities it was not something that we were aware of at all," he added.
The purchase price was not disclosed but Hirschson said it was a "reasonable" sum.
"He said he wanted to take his wife and children to a nice restaurant for a good dinner," Hirschson said.
Melendez had told The New York Times the address had been subject to a flood of anti-Semitic comments.
"My account was basically unused because I was getting dozens of replies every day from people who thought the account belonged to the state of Israel," he told the daily.
