it was the species character developement period that was one of the appeals of 9 for me. however, turning the Bajorans into, basically, "Space Jews" (don't give me that look, that's the trope name) would have ticked off a lot of people. the Ferengi being turned into the stereotype flipside of the jewish coin makes it more obvious.
the explanation: the bajorans represent the modern view of those of Hebrew descent: IE the old cultured, spiritually strong people who can kick your butt to Andromeda and back, while the ferengi represent the stereotypical greedy big nosed cheapskates that anti-semetics used to justify themselves to their abuse.
since this is a bit prevalent, SOMEONE in the development area for these two races HAS to be Semitic descent invoking N word privelages.
before you say I'm reading too much into this, other people have also theorized things like this, comparing the Cardies to the Nazis. TOS was always theorized to be the Cold War turned into a metaphor (with the Klingons as the Soviets, and the Romulans as the Chinese Communists). and TUC was outright stated to be/have been influenced by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
if they had really wanted to reflect a fort based Western (as was the theory behind the concept of the show to some people), then they should have made all the species reflect the "native Americans vs Settlers" metaphor that should have gone with it.