The poster child for statically typed OO is actually Simula 67. And Java is basically Simula with C-style syntax and packages.

1. Java was made OO from ground up. No pointer arithmetic, all code is encapsulated in classes, etc.

2. C++ has some unusual OO features -- friends, multiple-inheritance.

3. Most importantly, Java is significantly more approachable than C++ due to automatic memory management.