All the religious stuff is smokescreen to keep the israel project going, otherwise as you said there is no need for israel to wait for any of this.
Its all about money, eventually. It always is ! Gulf states Invest their oil money into US stock markets and help with holding up pertrodollar. Israel is a front state for the US to control this region and make sure no Arab states steps out of line and nobody challenges this system. In the middle of this all, they try to extend israel geographically, whenever they can, as an added bonus of having all this power. Eventually, israel itself got a little out of hand after they got Kennedy assassinated for opposing their Nuclear program and got nukes. Now even the US cannot control them, even if if they ever want to.
Hence US's extreme commitment to israel. All of the other religious stories are promoted to keep a large US support base of Hardline Christians, as well to keep the European Jews from never abandoning israel.