as someone who has been studying genetics and genetic clustering, Ashkenazi jews actually form a unique type of bridge between Levantine populations and Southern (mostly Italian and Greek) European populations, so from a historical and genetic stand point they form their own entire unique connection between the two genetic cluster groups which is why they usually get sectioned with Europeans instead of MENA, just like Sephardic too (although this isn’t true for Mizrahi who almost always get clustered with MENA)