XML may have nothing to do with Java, but some Java frameworks (e.g. Spring) are obsessed with it. Many (most?) Java devs don't even like Spring. Who in their right mind would want to write code to call constructors in XML? no type checking, no refactoring support etc.
I suspect the main reason Java became XML obsessed is because MS came out with C# and bragged about their XML and web services support. Ever since then Javaland has gone out of it's way to prove it was more XML and webservice centric. Net result is Java devs writing XML instead of code.
