what's your point?

>>> fruits = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"]
>>> for x in fruits:
...   print(x)
...   if x == "banana":
...       print(y)
...   if x == "apple":
...       y=1
... 
apple
banana
1
cherry
[download]

Probably you don't like the "hoisting" of the binding of y?

Please note that JS is also doing hoisting even that it has a var statement°

°) and now even let which behaves (almost completely) like my in Perl