Your point is, well, beside the point. You're saying that "OOP does not imply static methods," which is correct, but irrelevant, because the converse is true: "Static methods (in the Java sense) imply OOP." Assuming they're learning Java, it's the latter that matters to beginners, not the former.
You say it's about "Java's flavor of OOP." That's 100% true. So, how do you explain Java's flavor of OOP — which is necessary to explain why Java does certain things that would otherwise seem like arbitrary invocations — without explaining OOP at least in part? As soon as the beginner sees the word "class" or "public" they'll be forced to either contextualize those concepts or take them as arbitrary strings one puts into their program because Magic™.
The OC's point was that Java forces people to grapple with certain OOP concepts, even if those concepts are particular to Java's flavor of OOP.
You say it's about "Java's flavor of OOP." That's 100% true. So, how do you explain Java's flavor of OOP — which is necessary to explain why Java does certain things that would otherwise seem like arbitrary invocations — without explaining OOP at least in part? As soon as the beginner sees the word "class" or "public" they'll be forced to either contextualize those concepts or take them as arbitrary strings one puts into their program because Magic™.
The OC's point was that Java forces people to grapple with certain OOP concepts, even if those concepts are particular to Java's flavor of OOP.
You're both just talking past each other.