Yes the deploy-java-files.sh does need python to run. The python library, hpcc, will allow the script run in a cluster concurrently. But it should be easy to modify the script to run sequentially without python.
The reason I pick python is based on following:
1) To create a framework for running task in a cluster. It will address the issues in JIRA-8885 (Improving cluster tools). I used the same python library for JIRA-8885.
2) Eventually will replace expect/tcl with  python paramiko module for remote task execution.

It would be nice if we add python as prerequisite. Otherwise I can modify deploy-java-files.sh to run without python but will run sequentially now.