>>2439316 (OP)It depends on the sampling you use for middle eastern ancestry since Europe pop also has some middle eastern admixture, afterall, there isn't one European population that is more than 92% European genetically speaking. Ashkies can go up to 72% European admixture and are 28% genetically middle eastern. Most of the admixture took place during Roman times so it's mostly Iron age italian dna so they would be a transitional European group at least. All Ashkenazi Jews can trace their ancestry to a "bottleneck" of just 350 individuals, dating back to between 600 and 800 years ago. If you don't consider Greek islanders and (some) Greeks white then it would make sense to exclude ashke. jews too but I think Sardinians are white (obviously) and they are overwhelmingly Anatolian but Greek Cypriots aren't white, they're predominantly genetically middle eastern. I think Ashkenazim are cousins of whites
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59936-3