C++ is terrifying, and teaching an introductory programming course in C++ is an awful idea. Using plain C would make much more sense. C is also a better choice than Java because Java doesn't force you to learn about pointers, or memory in general, really. Countless Java bugs are introduced by programmers who don't understand what operations give you a copy of something, and which ones give you a reference to something (especially if that something is mutable).

I also think Objective-C is pretty good though, especially with the addition of ARC. It's like a better C, with Smalltalk-style objects and a lot more (mutable and immutable) datatype options. Much saner and less painful than C++, but more challenging than Java.